


The Road Not Taken

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [33]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 16:52:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 59
Words: 192,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only Leo had decided to take the Marquis's offer, a great many things would have gone differently</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue, In Which A Conversation Went Differently

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU, insofar as Leo's adventures have their own canon. It diverges from the other stories directly after _Perfection Of A Kind_ , and goes running off in its own direction. As such, this is not likely to be a _novel_ in the usual sense, where there's a story and arc and decent pacing and an identifiable beginning, middle, and end. It is, instead, a long series of Things That Happen if his story goes in another direction; it may be useful to think of it as a collection of vignettes and short stories.
> 
> Divided into chapters, though, for the sake of easy access.
> 
> I'll be adding to this irregularly. It's unlikely to have a specific end point. It's merely a worked idea of what could have happened. And didn't.

In two hours, Guo will appear with the morning coffee. That marks the beginning of the work day: your customized hot beverage arrives, you pick up your assigned electronic device and get back to work on the project. (I am not, strictly speaking, on the project. I’m doing something else entirely, while stashed in an apartment with plenty of supervision. A way of multitasking the babysitting, I suppose, rather than wasting an entire employee on full-time supervision of the contractor.) My laptop waits for me in on the coffee table, with very little on it but my nearly finished report.

If I were exceptionally diligent, I could get started before the coffee arrived. But I don’t want to be diligent. I want to stay right where I am, curled up on the bed with my head in Trey’s lap while he texts people in languages I don’t know. Multiple languages I don’t know; I’m sure he knows at least five. One more way in which I don’t fit in with these people.

“You’re thinking,” Trey says, sending out one more message. (Korean, I think. Doesn’t hurt for me to watch the screen if I can’t read it anyway.)

“I keep doing that.”

He bends a smile my way. We’re both too rumpled and dozy for him to turn on the full wattage charm. Can’t be sleepy the way humans get, but there’s a level of... I don’t even know what to call it. Relaxation, maybe, that’s a bit like it. The sense that for an hour or two, there’s nothing to worry about. “I’m not complaining,” he says. “What’s on your mind?”

What I should say is _Nothing, what are you doing?_ and he’ll let it drop. He’s never been the pushy sort--he is as much the antithesis of pushy as Julie is the epitome of it, within Impudite variations--and since I staggered back in from that mad incident in the rain, he’s been even more considerate. A few more steps of that and I’d object to being treated like I’m made of glass. As it is, I just appreciate the...space. That I can say _Nothing_ and he’ll accept it. That simple.

But what I say is, “Living on the corporeal.” Because that is what’s on my mind.

“What about it?” He lays his phone across his knee, screen down, which means he’s paying attention to me.

“Different ways of doing it.” I roll over onto my side, watching the door that no one’s about to come through. “My--first Prince imprinted some knowledge in my Forces so that I didn’t have to learn it all from scratch. Then I spent four years in college, learning architecture and learning how to play at being human. Then I end up in Theft, where it seems like most of the Magpies on the corporeal got dropped on the ground with car keys and the local language and not much else. Sink or swim, and I only meet the ones who could cope with that. And then I run into you and...” I may a vague sort of gesture towards the rest of the apartment, even if there aren’t many people out there right now. One that doesn’t require lifting my arm up. “And you’re all deep in Roles, Guo aside. You own a _house_. I can’t remember the last time I met a Magpie who did, Seneschals aside.”

“Technically speaking,” Trey says, “I rent.” His fingers slide along the edge of my ear, down the line of my jaw. “We’re on the far end of some sort of Magpie bell curve, that’s for sure. Which has its own kind of utility. People have different expectations.”

“I just end up wondering if it’s worth the time. Trying that hard to play at being human, instead of skating by on being able to fake it in short interactions.” That’s not all I end up wondering, but it’s what’s here that I’m willing to say. “It takes time and money and energy and...everything.”

“It does.” He rests his forearm across my shoulder. “But what else would we spend the time and money and energy and everything on? There are demons out there who would rather blow it on other things. That’s their call. If we want to have houses and boyfriends and cats and decent wardrobes, why _not_ , Leo? Why not go get a college education if it’s what you like?”

“It’s never that easy, you know.”

“Sometimes it is.” He could sound condescending, here. He doesn’t. “Once in a while, you get the right chance, and it’s as easy as taking what you want. _Getting_ what you want.”

I don’t want to be looking at the door, but I don’t want to move, either. I want this hour to last for days. (That’s not true. I would get fidgety. I want this feeling to last for days, wherever I am.) “It always costs something.”

“Always,” he agrees, light and honest. “Sometimes it’s worth it.”


	2. In Which I Make The Call

It’s three in the morning and I’m freezing. The literal kind of freezing. My jacket is back in the hotel room, and I was cold even before I lost that.

The convenience store clerk keeps giving me these sidelong looks, and I can’t tell if she wants to offer me a sweater or call the cops on me. There have been days when I was very good at reading human expression and intention. Today is not one of them. Or at least not this precise hour.

I bring one of the pre-paid phones up to the counter, and discover there’s no cash in my pockets.

“Can I borrow your phone?” I ask the clerk. While she’s trying to find a polite way to say _Fuck no_ , I say, “Never mind,” and walk back outside.

There is no snow falling. Cloud cover might make this night warmer, but the sky is perfectly clear and merciless. Enough streetlights are out here that I can make out a few stars overhead. Cold bright bastards that they are, staring down at us without any concern. We should know better than to expect otherwise.

I tuck my hands into my armpits, and try to think through the cold. Think about something useful, not the dark walls of apartment buildings, dark windows in restaurants that closed hours ago. The convenience store is the only lit building for three blocks in either direction; the alley between it and the wall of the next door complex smells of piss. This is a terrible place to spend three in the morning regardless of the weather.

It would be easy enough to walk back to the hotel--pick up the car I ditched a block away, that’s faster, that has a heater--and get my jacket. Or to sit in the car with the heater running and the radio turned up, until my partner comes to fetch me.

Of course he let me walk out of the room like this. Why would he stop me? He knows I’ll be back. And he knows where to find me.

Standing out here thinking bleak thoughts isn’t getting me any warmer. I’m tired and sore and angry and I want to talk to someone who is not _him_. Just for a little while.

I walk out of the line of sight of the surveillance camera pointed at the door, and resonate its insides into uselessness. Walk around the corner into that blind alley, and swap vessels.

I return to the convenience store, and draw the knife that I’ve been able to keep this long. “If you could just go ahead and give me what’s in that cash register,” I tell the clerk, “I’d appreciate that.”

It’s blunt and clumsy, and I’ve probably ruined her night. But no one got hurt. More hurt. And when I make it to a convenience store two miles away, in that car with the heat turned on, I can buy the damn phone I want.

This vessel has a jacket. That’s something too.

The car’s low on gas, and it’s a bad idea to hit three convenience stores in one night in this vessel, after robbing the first. Not in the same vessel, and I don’t want to change back. (The Boss said to keep the angels from seeing this one. I’ve left them no tapes of the robbery to review, and as Julie once pointed out, it’s easy to pass back into anonymity with the vessel of a fairly generic white man.) So I park somewhere out of the wind, where the car will hold what warmth it has a while longer, and contemplate the phone.

It would be a terrible idea to call Penny. Almost as bad an idea to call Iris. The notion of calling Sean is beyond ludicrous, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number I had for him was disconnected years ago. I could call Ash. He would say something charming, and act like he wants to hear from me.

I don’t have any good stories of exciting adventure to tell him right now. I’m not sure I could even feign interest in literature convincingly.

I want to talk to someone I can tell the truth, and since when has that been a good idea? And what does it matter what I want? Wanting things is useless. You can’t get them.

Well. Sometimes. If you’re willing to pay the price.

I wish I had Trey’s number. Or even--

Oh no. Enough of wanting and never doing. Enough of drawing lines and backing away when they’re crossed. Enough of _if only_ and _I would have, but_ and _maybe next time_ , like those are ever worth thinking about.

The number I call rings five times before picking up. I don’t recognize the voice of the woman who answers, or understand what she’s saying.

“I’d like to speak with Chaixin,” I say.

There’s a pause long enough that I’m about to repeat myself in Helltongue when the woman says, “Wait. One moment, please.”

The one moment is several minutes long. Rather than track the exact passing of time by the readout on my phone, I stare at my bare wrist where there is no watch of any sort. Or out the window.

I keep waiting for part of myself to say _This is a terrible idea, apologize for bothering her and get out of this conversation before it starts, what were you thinking?_ But that part of me doesn’t speak up. I don’t know what’s silenced it. It should be screaming at me by now.

Its silence worries me. There. That’s something concrete. It worries me that I’m not worried enough. No wonder people tell me I overthink things.

The blankness of the hold clicks over into the faint noise of a live line. A live line in a quiet room, but there’s still a presence there, breath and air moving somewhere on the other side. An ocean away. (How can we not feel the corporeal is more important than Hell, when it’s so much bigger? If Hell’s infinite, it’s not so in any way that matters to us as we squeeze together in one Principality or another.) “Go ahead,” says the Marquis. In Helltongue, now.

It only now occurs to me that I’m not sure if she can speak English. I’ve never heard her use it.

There is no way to speak in a way that doesn’t compromise me. I turn my hand palm up in front of me, across the center of the steering wheel, and watch my fingertips tremble. “If the offer is still open,” I say, “I would like to accept.”

“Where are you?” She doesn’t have to ask who I am. And she’s heard my voice from this vessel before.

“Colorado. A few hours west of Denver. I don’t know exactly.” These are the sentences that I’m speaking them, and I know this because I can hear myself say each word. 

Really, they’re not even good sentences.

“Ascend to your Heart,” she says. “Go to the Miss Mark, and wait.” There is the amount of silence that stretches from the beginning to the end of an inhale. “Lanthano will meet you there.”

When she hangs up, I sit in the car and stare at that same hand of mine. It’s still shaking.

Maybe that will stop when I’m not in this body.

#

Stygia is always cold. It’s the fucking wind. But I make it from my Heart to the old theater without having to kill anyone, or engage in extensive threats, or retrace my steps more than once, so there’s that. Basic navigational competence in Hell. I can usually find my way back to places I’ve been before; it’s part of the Theft skill set. Knowing where the safehouses are, and where the exits are, and how to get to them quickly.

The Miss Mark is not a safehouse as such. And even aside from the attunement leading him straight to me, my partner would be inclined to look for me here, once he noticed I went to Hell.

It does occur to me, on the trip over, to wonder how the Marquis knew I’d be able to find the place. Right up until I remember seeing Lanthano for the first time in an alleyway nearby, and...well. I have a better idea now than I used to, of who he was actually tailing at the time.

There’s no one at the concession counter, and no one appearing in a doorway to greet me. The inside of the theater’s empty of any viewers that I can see. But on the screen a black and white film plays on, scratchy and jumping over lost frames. Here in the middle of the story, I can’t piece together what’s going on. Three Impudites make cryptic statements to each other; the Lilim is betraying one of them to another one; a Balseraph orders her to do something murderous while they stand on the platform of a train station, trains whipping by in the background. The human extras have been herded into place and directed ineptly. Half of them stare at the camera, or to whoever is threatening them into good behavior from off-screen, and... I suppose that’s not so inaccurate a representation of how humans usually look in Hell. Watching you to see if you’re going to hurt them next.

Lanthano is not half so sneaky as some people. He enters through an employee door that doesn’t let any light into the room, but I still spot him on the approach.

He takes a seat beside me, perfectly silent, and offers me a hand.

I was wrong. My hand’s still shaking. But it helps when he’s holding on.

“Do you want to wait out the end of the movie?” he asks, voice pitched low, as if there’s an entire audience we might disturb with unnecessary chatter.

“Not really.” On the screen, one of the Impudites is now meeting with the same Balseraph, and acquiring instructions to frame the Lilim for the murder she’s about to commit anyway.

“Good. It’s not one of the better ones.” He stands up, my hand in his, and I stand with him. “We’ll go back to the office. The long way, this time.”

“How far is it?”

That’s not what I mean, and he knows it, but he says, “Not too far. We run into any trouble along the way, it’s easy to call for help.”

I want walls around me that I can trust. Even if they’re not mine.


	3. An Interlude, In Which Some Uncharitable Thoughts Are Had

A part of Lanthano had been waiting for the call ever since he left Seattle. Since two days before that, when a particular Calabite of recent acquaintance handed back everything given to him, and walked away. Because of course the call would come. Sooner, rather than later. It was the obvious choice. It was the _smart_ choice, and Leo was not stupid.

And another part of him had said, in a vicious tone he never let into his voice except with particular coworkers who knew how to take it, that any number of smart people were complete fools for love, and doubly so when they loved the worst person possible. It was unreasonable to wait and _want_ , when he owned exactly the same comforts and pleasures as he had before the trip, and if those had been sufficient before, why shouldn’t they be sufficient afterward?

That second part of him spoke so viciously because he did not enjoy being the fool for love. (Which it wasn’t. Not love. Attachment, yes. An unreasonable fondness that chewed at the corners of his mind. But he’d only ever loved two people, and one of them being gone didn’t mean he was auditioning for replacements.) If someone else made bad choices, that was no fault of his, and why should he wait?

Except he had waited. A held breath, tucked away from sight and active thought, until the call _arrived_. Dropping into his head when he wasn’t expecting anything at all.

It couldn’t be midnight back home, yet. And he had Leo seated in his room at the office, real as anything else, staring at the beer he’d been offered like it was made of snakes.

It was not a good moment for _I told you so_ or _What took you so long?_ Judging by his experience with coworkers who’d arrived in a similar state, that moment would not arrive for at least a month. Maybe not for years.

Lanthano snaked the beer bottle right back out of Leo’s hands. “Hot chocolate?”

“Would it taste like actual chocolate?” Leo asked. He placed his hands palm down across his knees, deliberately. “I try not to ask after what they use for ingredients, here in Hell.”

“It’s the good stuff.” Lanthano slid the beer beneath the futon, where no one would kick it, and laid a hand over Leo’s. At least the Calabite had recovered enough that the shaking wasn’t visible anymore. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you.”

He knew how to read the pauses, and that one was a whole long, tangled chain of thought, dealt with and dismissed in a few seconds. “Can’t see what use that would be,” Leo said. “Done is done. Unless there’s another interview ahead, or some kind of aptitude test.”

“You’re here,” Lanthano said. Inside the office, and inside the _company_ , and he didn’t know how to communicate that properly. More than fact, it was an understanding that had taken him far too long to get for himself. Back when he’d been brought and set down and given a chance, and...oh, he didn’t want someone he could keep, who could be more than a job, to have to go through that much. There had to be a way to shortcut the process and make it easy.

He hated not having the words for it. Having the right words, the right expression, the right touch for changing a person’s mind, those were his professional skills. If he were good enough at his job, he could fix this right now.

And he was not quite that good.

“I’m not sure I could find the place again,” Leo said, as if this was an admission of some fault.

“It’s not supposed to be trivial to find. Keeps the salesmen and proselytizers out.” Lanthano slid nearer, hip to hip against Leo, and flicked his wing back to avoid bumping those. (You’d think the man hadn’t grown up in his own body, for how he always seemed surprised when anything hit his wings.) “There used to be a more obvious entrance, but people kept showing up with flyers for the elections, so we trapped it and stopped using that one.”

“Should’ve made them fill out forms,” Leo said, his voice brittle and light. “If they want your vote, they can give their position on...oh, whatever it takes about forty minutes to fill out in duplicate. For extra points, try to sneak in some seditious no-win questions, and make them sign their names. You can sell it off to Secrets.”

“If we get bored with the door traps, maybe. There’s a warning sign. Anyone who walks past the warning sign has a, uh--”

“Valuable learning experience.”

“That.” Lanthano let one wing settle down across Leo’s wings and shoulders. Light touch, ready to flick away if it got too much of a reaction. “Not really our job. We stick to educating the people who work for us.” He got an absent nod to that, and he knew that he should not pry. Let the man sit in quiet as long as he wanted. Even if the urge was there to try to make him _see_ what was available. Protection and friendship and support, everything a demon could need for getting what they wanted. “Do you want anything?” It was the wrong question, because it was exactly the question he wanted to ask.

“I was just thinking,” Leo said, “that there’s no exact equivalent in Helltongue for hysteria.” The last word spoken in English, which was always a jarring sort of language to have show up in the office as anything other than text. “I suppose it’s because the pejoratives work differently here. Different axes of scorn. So you get this implication that someone is upset the way humans are, because everyone knows humans can’t handle a little stress, and we’re so much better at it than they are.”

Responding to that was like walking through a room in the dark, aware that broken glass was scattered across the floor. Lanthano set his shoulder against Leo’s. Contact up and down, without crowding him. He knew better than to offer anything too much like an embrace. “I don’t think it matters so much--what the details are,” he said, piecing together something appropriate as quickly as he could. “So long as we get the job done. And you’re here.”

Leo’s hand flipped over beneath his, and latched on, fingers slipping between fingers. “I keep running away,” he said. “Over and over again, and I keep thinking that this time I’ve found a place to stop. Except the running away is built into the Word I’m attached to, now, so maybe there is no stopping.”

The hard part wasn’t figuring out the real question behind that statement. It was figuring out how to answer it, while pretending he hadn’t heard that question at all.

“It’s not always,” Lanthano said. “It’s--not a straight line.” He needed text for this, some way of giving himself a moment to think. He hadn’t realized until he reached the Calabite that the crisis wasn’t over yet, because it was still living inside Leo’s head. “You find a point to leave and come back to. Something to, uh, orbit around. You keep moving, but you always know where home is.”

“It’s not Stygia,” Leo said.

“Home isn’t a place,” Lanthano said. “It’s people.”

Leo’s hand gripped his, hard enough to hurt. Not hard enough to bruise. Not worth mentioning. “I can’t.”

Lanthano waited a moment to see if that would get a supporting verb, and then asked, “Can’t what?” He couldn’t pretend to some sort of light tone anymore. Too obviously artificial, even if it might help someone save face.

“I can’t. Talk to her. I can’t love her the way all of you do. I’m going to fuck this up all over again, because I always do. The only time I ever had a team that worked, I sent them all away so that I wouldn’t drag them down.” The shaking was starting up again. “Everything falls apart.”

Lanthano had read that file front to back, referenced it a half dozen times, and he still couldn’t place what Leo was referring to. Never mind that. “Of course things fall apart,” he said. “And if it was something worth keeping, we glue the pieces back together. You’re not the only person who’s made some bad choice under stress. You should--well, you shouldn’t ask Adrian about his meltdowns, he’d hate that, but you’re not _alone_ in that. And you don’t need to love the Marquis. She’s not a Habbalite, or even an _Impudite_ , to need that. Do you think Zabina’s in love with her? All you need to do is your job.”

He wanted to pull Leo into his lap, spread wings over him. Wrap him up tight and tell him the truth. It wasn’t the time for that, any more than it was time for _Why didn’t you_ and _I wish you had_. “You’re already good enough,” Lanthano said. “We know that. That’s why she made you that offer.” _And why didn’t you just take it then?_ “You walked away, but you came back. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“I had to know,” Leo said. As if he could hear what Lanthano wasn’t saying. “If I could say no.”

“You could.”

“But I need to talk to her now.”

“Soon,” Lanthano said. He tugged his hand away from Leo’s, and then slipped the two together again. Not so tightly as before, but right back in the same place. As easy as that. “If you can’t do it right now, it can wait.”

“Oh,” Leo said softly, “I can. I just don’t want to.” He lifted his head to smile at Lanthano, a crooked expression. “But since when has that been relevant?”


	4. In Which I Put Up A Good Front, All Considered

Size is an odd thing in Hell. It maps to Forces fairly well--at least among demons--up until about seven, when demonlings turn into some Band and settle into the shape they’re going to keep. Then it gets...abstract. Some people get bigger with more Forces, or heftier, or just have a greater sense of solidity. The more human the demon’s form, the less likely they are to get out of scale from the standard the humans set. You don’t find a lot of giant Impudites walking down the street. (Where Hell has streets. Stygia has some, anyway.) So past a point you can’t judge how powerful someone is by size alone. Even when it comes to the true essence of someone’s nature, the Forces everyone who’s a person (and a lot of things that aren’t) is made of, seen in the presumed most real part of this three-layered reality we have, it’s... I mean, you can’t tell. Not from looking. Not unless you’re a Superior, who can see the Forces themselves.

So it is not entirely a surprise to discover that the Marquis is shorter than I am. Not by much. And yet I don’t think I could mistake her, even if I’d had no introduction beyond walking into the office and seeing her there, for someone smaller than me. She has a _solidity_ that is the exact opposite of the insubstantial look damned souls get when they’ve been Force-shredded a little.

And when you take horns into account, I’m not sure whether or not I’m actually taller. It would probably take a mirror to be sure, and it doesn’t really matter. It’s the sort of thing I think about because measuring myself against her and realizing how little it matters is easier right now than contemplating other sorts of things.

She could pull me apart. Not as easily as a Prince. Easily enough. I don’t think she will today, unless I say entirely the wrong thing, because it would upset Lanthano. I’m almost certain she likes him.

I am sitting down, because she motioned for me to sit. Presumably. I don’t remember the motion or my reaction to it, as specific events, but they seem to fit in with how the last few minutes have gone. Lanthano is outside this room, and I hope he’s waiting for me there. I will take whatever damn scrap of attention he chooses to give me right now whether it’s authentic or not. It’s something to think about.

My hands are folded together in my lap. A terrible sort of pose, this one. If I spent a moment thinking of a better one I could adjust, but I’m not an Impudite, and that sort of thing still isn’t instinctive. Natural. The only thing which is entirely natural to me is breaking things.

Breaking things and fear of fire, these days. The Discord’s as bone-deep as my dissonance condition, and as impossible for me to change.

I wonder if she’s waiting for me to say something.

“Would you like to work for me?” she asks. No introduction beyond that. I suppose we’re beyond preambles now, and she’s a busy woman. I’m not sure what a Marquis does in Hell. Scheme and betray and attack and defend and administrate, plus whatever work they have on the corporeal, in person or by proxy. Theft probably has less paperwork for it than Fire or the War, but there’s always paperwork. A constant in bureaucracy, and an aristocracy is just another type of bureaucracy with fancier titles and a bit more violence.

I’m supposed to say yes. But what comes out of my mouth is, “I don’t know.”

To which she only dips her chin. Acknowledgment of the stated position. Maybe I will live through this. Probably I will live through this, or I wouldn’t have come, would I? If I weren’t afraid of a chance at true death, there were other places I might have run.

That’s not useful to think about either.

“Would you like to stay?”

It’s not the same question. It is the same question. Saying yes to this means saying yes to the previous one, but having the same answer doesn’t make them synonyms.

And what I say now is, “Yes.” Which is true. Partially true. It’s that headache-inducing sort of answer where I don’t know whether or not I’m telling the truth, and Penny would give me such a look over it. But then he’d maybe explain to me what I really mean. He can do that sometimes. (He will not get to do that again.) Probably what I mean is _Let me stay with these people who are still acting like they like me,_ which is not exactly the same thing, but it’s close enough.

“Will you work for me?” She’s so still when she asks these questions. Cool and intent, as if for this moment I am the only thing in this room she cares to concentrate on.

“I don’t know how you can trust me.” My hands are not folded together. They’re gripping my knees. I don’t like it when I can’t remember what I’ve done. “I told him that I wouldn’t leave him. Promised that I wouldn’t, no matter what. And here I am. If I’m willing to break that promise to him, how could anyone trust me not to do the same again?”

“Trust is not given,” says the Marquis, “but earned.” She watches me with perfect golden eyes, her irises thin black slits. “He harmed you. I will not. As I continue not to harm you, you will come to trust me. As you continue to do your job, I will come to trust you.” She turns a hand in the air. One short motion.

It was never about the hurt. I mean. The physical kind. He’s attuned to me, he can’t hurt me that way, more or less. It wasn’t about anything that was physical, except as--it was always about what he said. Did. What he _meant_ , and showed to be true by his actions regardless, and I don’t even know why I get so upset about some things. If I were older and stronger and braver, nothing he did would ever have upset me at all.

“I will,” I say. “Work for you.” And I do not say _If you’ll still have me_ because I’ve already said far more than I should have.

“You will be mine,” Chaixin says, the Helltongue bending archaic in the formality of that statement, “and I will protect you.” She leaves her desk to stand by me, and there is no question but that I’m expected to stand before her.

She fixes the collar on my jacket. I think that’s reflex. Then lays two fingers against my chest. Where my heart would be, if I were human, and I don’t know how well my insides match that pattern, in this supposedly truest body of mine. Never was into dissection.

“Details,” she says, “will be dealt with. Stay here until your Heart has been moved. No one will harm you.” She does not smile: she bares her teeth, a flash of sharp points inside her mouth. “I will deal with anyone who might try.”

She doesn’t turn away from me as dismissal, this time. She nudges me towards the door, and watches me go.

Lanthano is waiting outside, hands shoved in his pockets and his back to the opposite wall. Right where he can see me come out.

And he lights up on seeing me. Not like Guo’s overwhelming neediness. Just. Like he’s glad to see me again, for all that I was gone for less time than it’d take him to get a decent cup of coffee.

“I told you,” he says, taking my hand, “that it would be fine.” Which isn’t exactly what he said. (I don’t know why I care so much what people said when I know what’s meant. It doesn’t matter if people tell the truth if you know it yourself.) “Everything’s set?”

“Yeah.” That’s one way to put it. “I need to stay around here for--a while.” Presumably less than three days. I don’t know what’s involved in getting a Heart transferred to another part of Hell. You can’t really send a minion around with a shoebox to carry one of those.

“We’ll get you an office,” he says. “There are all sorts of spare rooms anyway, and you can figure out how you want it painted, and...” He loops my arm into his. “...we can get to that later. You can stay with me.”

If I have to start dealing with interior design choices right now, I am going to start laughing, and I won’t be able to stop. I’m pretty sure Lanthano has figured that out.

He’ll feel better if there’s something he can do for me. And I don’t know that there’s anything I can do to make myself feel any different right now, so one of us might as well be happy, and it’s not going to be me.

“Is that hot chocolate offer still open?”

“Entirely,” he says. A little more pleased right there, for being given a chance to help. I’ll take it. I’ll take it. This is what I can do. I’ll take it.


	5. In Which I Go Exploring

It takes about sixteen hours for me to get sick of the inside of my own head, and fidgety enough to do something about it. Or maybe that’s just how long it took for me to pack away the sorts of things I don’t want to think about into boxes secure enough that they’ll stay shut.

There’s no reason for me to be upset. Not like this. Not so much that I’d spend that long doing nothing of any use, letting an Impudite I spent three weeks with make soothing noises at me and feed me hot chocolate. I have left people before, on worse terms. (It’s not like I called the angels down on anyone this time.) I’ve swapped _Words_ , and this is nothing like that. Taking up an offer of employment while frustrated with current working conditions should be--standard. It is standard. People do this sort of thing all the time.

The work conditions were never the problem. Only what happened between jobs.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

And so, finding myself tired of staring at the floors and ceilings and walls of Lanthano’s room, I ask for an office tour. Which he leaps on so readily that I can only imagine he was just as tired of sitting there beside me, making inconsequential conversation to be comforting.

I also suspect he’s the sort of guy who likes playing tour guide anyway, by the way he points out who owns what room as we walk down the hall away from his. It’s a wash of names that I can’t remember yet, except when they overlap with people I’ve met before: Valentin and Yuliang and Dio and Baolan and Xiang, other names I’ve already had slip out of my mind as Lanthano has his own line or two of explanation for who these people are. I’m not going to remember most of those, either; I’m...distractible. Unreasonably so.

We turn a corner, and he starts opening doors instead of just pointing to them. A sliding door leads into a break room that’s currently occupied by another Impudite and a pair of damned souls. One of them’s behind a counter--apparently the office has its own dedicated barista--while the other sits on the Impudite’s lap, wide-eyed at some story.

“Valentin,” Lanthano says, sliding into such a perfectly natural amiability that I know something’s up, “meet Leo, and vice versa. He just signed on.”

“I heard,” says the other Impudite. They have enormous pale gray eyes, and they are not looking at Lanthano or me, but at one human and then the other. “Welcome to the company. You’ll like it here.”

“It’s the best place in Hell to work,” says the human on Valentin’s lap, as meek as I’d expected from the damned interrupting demons at talk, and yet entirely fervent.

So they don’t only rescue broken demons, here.

Though I wasn’t broken. Just. Tired of some things.

Lanthano makes small talk so that I don’t have to, collects two new drinks for us, and gets us back out of there before I’m forced to actually hold a conversation with a coworker I haven’t met before. There must be a few dozen of them, especially if we’re counting everyone stationed in Hell.

The instant the door’s closed behind us, Lanthano says, “Don’t mind them. Valentin’s just--having a hard time this decade. They’re getting better.”

Which is a world of implication I don’t have the energy to follow up on right now. “Is this the kind of hard time that I need to keep an eye out for?”

“Mm. Only on the corporeal, and they’re not allowed there right now, so...not really.” Lanthano shrugs, covering up his discomfort with the whole topic pretty well. I wouldn’t catch that any existed if I hadn’t spent time with him before. “If you’d signed up in the eighties, now, _that_ was a decade.”

I wasn’t alive in the eighties. Which Lanthano knows, but he’s already moved past that topic to point out the entrance to an art gallery. Except it’s apparently not exactly a gallery, but a storage room arranged to put a few things on display, where people without much clearance--note to self, ask about clearance levels later--can look at high art and thus be edified without endangering anything more valuable.

We step in and out of conference rooms, a private theater--movie, not stage--and a few rooms of unclear focus that Lanthano describes as “focus rooms”. I might’ve called them the equivalent of hotel rooms with extra office furniture, otherwise. No one who gets lost in this place will ever go too long without finding a comfortable chair and a work surface.

An entire hallway is waved off as “rooms for political stuff,” and I’m just as glad not to be taken through those. I know virtually nothing about the politics of Hell, and I certainly haven’t been hired on to help with that. I’d probably end up set on fire within a week.

“There’s a room for parties,” Lanthano says, with a disdainful gesture towards the end of that hallway, “but we almost never use that. I mean, there’s the yearly employee party, and that’s enough fun, even if most of the exciting parts happen in the corporeal side of things, but politics mean once in a while you have to throw a party, or let someone with less territory use your space to throw theirs. Captain Dio--you should probably meet it eventually, but there’s no rush--says that 50% of the political fights in Hell are over territory, and it’s probably right.”

“What sort of ranks does the Marquis have under her?” I ask, on the principle that the more bureaucracy there is ahead of me, the sooner I’d better find out.

“Dio’s the only Captain. It’s strictly Hell-side political focus, and likes to keep things that way. Not a big fan of humans, _especially_ needing to get into their heads. How it ended up a Shedite in the first place...” Lanthano shrugs, a gesture I feel as much as see, with his arm tucked into mine. I’m not used to walking around like this, but it makes him happy. “Then there’s four Knights. Zabina you’ve met.” Which confirms what I suspected, about who picked up that latest promised promotion. “She’s got the Europe division, which so far is pretty much just her, but I expect some people will get shuffled around when Roles allow. Kohaku has Japan. That whole division’s a bit insular, but not in a bad way. They just spend a lot of time together. You’ll meet it at the next party, anyway. Nhung takes care of everything in Asia that’s not Japan or China--since Chaixin watches China herself--but is mostly based in Korea. And then there’s Adrian, who goes where he’s needed.”

I shove my hands in the pockets of my jacket. “Maybe I should ask for an organizational flowchart.”

“It’s not all that complicated. Maybe a lot to take in at once. And you don’t need to pay attention to most of that; no one’s that fussy about rank, for the few people who have it, except on a job. And then it’ll be perfectly clear who you’re answering to.”

“Zabina.”

“Probably,” Lanthano says, with a flicked glance sideways. Trying to figure out if I’m feeling better and starting to look ahead, or if that was a comment indicating displeasure. Neither, really. It’s perfectly obvious that there are only so many places in this company for someone my vessels and language skills. Or lack thereof.

He starts explaining the decor we’re passing, and I realize I was supposed to say something. I’ve got to pull myself back together, because not everyone’s going to so accommodating about conversations as this particular Impudite is. No matter how _pleasant_ the rest of the company supposedly is, I can’t count on that. Demons are pleasant because they want something out of you, and right now there’s nothing for me to offer anyone here. I’ve already been recruited.

I recognize the route we’re taking well enough to be expecting C when we turn a corner to find her there. Still guarding the vault, and just as much a model of something humans and Calabim were imperfectly copied from as before. She breaks into a toothy smile when we appear.

“You signed up,” she says. “Good call.”

“The news really does get around fast,” I say. My wings curl in at my back when I’m nervous, and I need to start paying attention to that. Body language to control that I’m not used to anymore.

“Stygia,” C says, and shrugs. “Come over here and let me take a look at you.”

“We’re heading into the vault,” Lanthano says. “Since we’re both cleared for it now--”

C claps him on the shoulder so hard he staggers. “Won’t take but a minute,” she says, and grabs one of my horns. I follow her tug before it can turn into dragging. “Still have all your limbs,” she says, looking me up and down. “That’s a good sign. So what broke?”

“Nothing broke,” I say. “I just left.” I said I would never leave, and it just goes to show that I can’t keep my promises to anyone. Maybe I’m lucky in that I’ve upgraded to leaving people who are better equipped to handle it. Nik and Ferro and Katherine will never forgive me, but--someone who’s lost all that many partners can handle losing one more.

“Something’s always broken,” C says, “or you wouldn’t be here.” She has a grin to encompass me and Lanthano both on that line, and he’s gone quiet and still beside me. “Patience or trust or someone’s back. Minds, that’s a popular one. The Marquises made a whole practice of piecing those back together and gluing up the cracks. And watching that squishy new one gurgle about, it seems Chaixin’s still got a dab hand at repairing trust. So what’s yours?”

It’s not of her business. She frightens me. And the Marquis said no one in here would hurt me, but how am I supposed to know what’s true?

“I just got tired,” I say, “of dealing with that job,” and I get a look from her that says, _Yeah, pull the other one._

But what she says out loud is, “Smart move. No reason to waste whatever portion of life you have remaining on something you don’t like. Go in and look at the shiny stuff, and remember to sign out anything you take.” One little pat on my horn, and she lets us go.

“So,” I say to Lanthano, as the door closes behind us, “you’re not a fan.” The vault looks like nothing so much as a well-managed antique shop colliding with some survivalist nut’s weapons collection. A lectern by the door holds a book and pen, presumably for signing out what people take. Not everything in here is an artifact, but enough of it is that it represents more value than what I usually steal in a year straight.

“You know how humans talk about someone being inhuman, because they don’t relate to anyone else in a normal way? She’s like--the demonic version of that.” Lanthano scrubs a hand through his perfect silky hair, and is enough of an Impudite to look gorgeous doing it even when expressing frustration. “She’s friendly. All the time. She’d probably chat with intruders while she was ripping their limbs off. It’s just not--natural.”

“I think it’s supposed to be natural for Calabim,” I say, though I can’t really disagree with his assessment. “Maybe we just have a skewed idea of what the Band is supposed to be like, because of our sample set.”

“Maybe,” Lanthano says. He heads straight for a rack of clothing, no surprise there, and starts poking through it for--well, probably for something to upgrade my wardrobe, which is not meeting local standards. As usual. The damned souls in this place wear more expensive clothing than I do, and that was true even before this set was bounced off a few stone walls beneath the Monastery and dragged through muddy puddles there. “What’s your sample set?”

I shove my hands in my jacket pockets. Nothing in there. Of course there’s nothing in there. Wasn’t the last time I checked, either. “Belial, I guess. That was the gold standard to live up to, where I grew up.”

“And after that?” He glances back over his shoulder for a moment. Friendly expression, something in his eyes I can’t pin down. Nothing to worry about. Probably.

“Well, I worked for this one asshole Captain in the War for a while, but I wouldn’t call him a role model. And...” I sort through Calabim of my past. For all that I liked Al, her path wasn’t one I could’ve followed if I’d wanted to. “I mean, there’s the Boss, of course.”

“Of course,” Lanthano says, like he hasn’t even noticed that’s who I should’ve mentioned first. He holds out a jacket. “Try this one on. It’s not much of an artifact, as these things go, but it’d look good on you.”

I pull off my current jacket. By the time I’ve worked it over my wings so I can hand it to him for holding, one of the wing slits has torn all the way down the back. One of the little-discussed downsides of celestial forms: the tendency in Hell to follow a variety of human fashions while having more limbs than those bastards do. “What kind of artifact is it?” The one he’s offering is a gray-green coat in wool--or whatever Hell’s equivalent is, I’ve learned not to ask--with cuffs and wing slits lined in leather. It also proves to have a mandarin collar, once I’ve got it on, which is nothing I’m used to. T-shirts and hoodies are a lot closer to my fashion statement this decade.

“Unbreakable,” he says, with some satisfaction. “Someone picked it up in case Chaixin wanted it, but it wasn’t her style, and--it ended up here for whenever someone else needed a jacket that can’t be damaged, which comes up less often than you’d think.” That edit I know the signs for, by now. Eliding a comment having to do with Daosheng, the dead Marquis no one wants to talk about.

Except C, who Lanthano, the most amiable person in Hell, doesn’t like at all. I wonder if that dislike began before Daosheng’s death, or not until after.

“Well, it fits,” I say. A little more snugly than I might like, but that’s probably what it’s supposed to do. “If it’s not a big deal for me to wear it out of here--”

“Not at all. Just sign it out.”

“And what do I do with the old one?”

Lanthano, who has been holding it all along, looks down at what’s in his hand like he’s just discovered his cat has done something messy and feline in that area. “...set it on fire?”

“Can I actually do that around here?”

“Yeah,” he says, “we have a room for it,” and it turns out they _do_ , which is the best thing to happen to me all day.


	6. An Interlude, In Which Territory Is Disputed

The timing was never going to be good. This, Lanthano had accepted and expected from the start. He’d put work in a holding pattern, sent a message about cat and houseplant care back to the corporeal via messenger while Leo was in with Chaixin, and then buckled down for spending some serious attention--and thus time and focus, to the exclusion of all other duties--for a few days.

And, well. He had certainly realized that other people wouldn’t respect that, because this was a common pattern within the company. People who didn’t hold down jobs discounted the cost of a disrupted schedule coming from those who did, and generally considered this kind of work--the quiet, steady kind that had no flash or immediate results--to be simple and inconsequential.

Which meant that inevitably someone was going to interrupt him. Likely at an inconvenient moment, since he didn’t expect to have any convenient ones for interruption over the next several weeks. (Nor did he expect to have several weeks to focus on the problem at hand, no matter what Leo needed, because while the Marquis believed strongly in keeping her employees in good condition, there was also work to be done. All he would get time for was a rough patch job, enough duct tape to prevent a really horrible cascading breakdown, and they were both lucky to get that.) There were a variety of options for who might be the one to show and not be easily shoved away again, ranging from the mildly inconvenient (like Guo) to the seriously difficult (like Valentin). The best he could do was hope for the former.

He got half his wish, in that the first person to burst into his office--without knocking, even--stood solidly in the middle of that particular scale of inconvenience.

“Sorry I’m so late,” Yuliang said, poised on the tips of her toes, all breathless in that perfect blend of brightness and concern that he appreciated on a professional level. “I didn’t get the word until _just_ this morning, and then I couldn’t up and leave in the middle of what I was doing, but I got here as soon as I could, Lee.” Her fall from toe-tips to lunge in was one perfect move, some legacy of the sword work he’d never seen her use but heard about from others. And then she was between him--sitting at the desk for once, because it made sense to give Leo space once in a while, there was such a thing as crowding people, even if _some_ coworkers didn’t understand that--and Leo, who was caught in a wary pause that refused to resolve into welcome or a flinch. Though either might’ve been appropriate, under the circumstances.

“It’s good to see you again,” Leo said, polite and neutral and friendly enough to not cause any hurt reactions. It was a good stock phrase, and Lanthano wouldn’t have been able to say, if pressed, whether it was true or not. Helltongue was the best language he’d ever found for lying, though English came a distant second. Something about all those nuances available in shuffling around the bits of the verbs.

“What’s good,” Yuliang said, “is that you’re here.” She had enough sense not to crowd him entirely, but still set her hands to his shoulders, leaning in with her hair sliding forward. “We knew you’d get back to us sooner or later, and the sooner the better.” Yuliang tucked a strand of Leo’s hair back around a horn. “Best of all is right _now_ , right? How are you doing?”

Leo’s gaze flickered over to Lanthano, and back to the Impudite directly in front of him. “I’ve had better weeks,” he said, wry rather than light. “But I’m generally okay.” Which was a lie, and everyone in the room knew it--even before walking in, Yuliang should have been able to tell that much--but it was an act of basic civility to pretend to believe it.

“Of course you are,” Yuliang said, and sat beside Leo, taking his hands in hers. (Both was one too many. She wasn’t paying enough attention.) “You’re _here_ , which makes everything better right away. And just look at you! I never got to see your real face before.”

“You look exactly the same,” Leo said. He tilted his head back, surveying her right back. “Except I think you’re taller here.”

“Little bit.” Yuliang held her thumb and forefinger fractionally apart. “Come see my office. Have you been in here the whole time? You must be going stir-crazy.”

“Oh,” Leo said, “we’ve been around a bit.” Even in the midst of his current emotional hole, he was able to pick out the attempt to stake a claim, and understand it was a bad idea to give in to it easily. Clever boy.

“We stopped by the vault,” Lanthano said, addressing himself to the two of them as if he didn’t mind in the slightest that a coworker--who might be senior to him, but certainly didn’t outrank him, not in immediate potential nor on a current project--was trying to run roughshod over him, in his own room. “And a few other places. Did you see Valentin? They were in the lounge when we looked in there.”

“I should probably go say hello,” Yuliang said, the corner of her mouth twisting. “They used to be so much more _fun_ , and now all they do is snipe every single excuse to go to Shal-Mari. They’re not the only one who wants an excuse to go there. Oh, Lee!” She could switch the complete focus of her attention without even turning her face. It was a clever trick. “We should take you shopping and get you something decent to wear. That jacket’s fine--is that the one from the vault?--but, I mean, we have laundry facilities, sure, but there are better options.”

“Maybe later.” Leo’s free hand, the other still caught by the Impudite at his side, slid into a pocket. “Unless there’s a dress code I’m failing to conform to properly.”

And Yuliang finally, _finally_ listened to one of the warnings that poor Calabite was trying to give, and settled back fractionally. Not giving him as much space as he might want, but enough that he wouldn’t object, and that was everything about Yuliang’s social philosophy, right there. “Not really,” she said chirpily. “Otherwise the Shedim would run into some serious trouble.”

“Speaking of which,” Lanthano said, “how’s Guo doing?”

“Oh, he’s learning. Picked up a host in this adorable little street gang, and he’s trying to work out how to make them more effective and a little more careful. It’s really cute; he keeps running back home to ask me for advice on impressing his mortal friends with his daring while not, you know, actually doing anything too dangerous. I think he’s kicking for another Corporeal Force, which is just plain _smart_ , all things considered.” Yuliang hooked a leg over Leo’s knee, and lounged across the futon as if she owned the furniture and location both. “He’ll send along his hellos once he’s heard you’re back, Lee. I texted him, but he’s really bad about checking his messages lately. Have you been hooked up with tech for the corporeal yet?”

Lanthano reflected on the fact that Chaixin would certainly call him in for a talk if he threw something at Yuliang’s head without more provocation than this. Though she was certainly being blessed well provoking, and clearly _knew_ it. Like order of events on the corporeal had already established precedent, and she wanted to make the matter clear, when he’d been the one doing the heavy lifting on that entire job.

“Most of the corporeal details,” Lanthano said, “are waiting on when he goes back down to the corporeal, since that’s really the business of the appropriate Knight for the area.”

“Do any of the geographical zones include places where people speak English?” Leo asked. He was not edging away from Yuliang’s touch, but then, she had an annoyingly precise grasp of just how far she could push.

“Everyone speaks English these days,” Yuliang said. “I mean, not _everyone_ , but everyone who means to do international business, so most everyone who matters in that sense. You could end up just about everywhere!”

That was another one of those lies that they all pretended to believe, for the sake of civility. It took a moment of silence, not long enough to become uncomfortable, for them all to determine to do that. (Lanthano was tempted otherwise, but he suspected pursuing that particular line of conversation would end in things being thrown, and that talk with Chaixin that he didn’t want to have.)

“Anyway,” Yuliang said, moving relentlessly onward, “what matters is what you want to do. Now that you’re here, there are so many options. We _could_ get you new clothes, or start having your office set up, or see about assigning you a secretary, if you want one. Not everyone bothers, since you sort of have to keep track of them if you pick one, but it can be nice! Someone to take messages for you while you’re out, keep your room dusted, that kind of thing. Thano, didn’t you have one before?”

“For a while,” Lanthano said. “Ended up being more bother than it was worth.” He spun his chair around and slipped around in it, to rest his chin on arms over the back. If he went to sit down next to the others now, Yuliang would be between the two of them, and that was--unfair wasn’t the right word. Annoying. An imposition, and she knew it. “What would you like to do, Leo?”

It was a little cruel, to put the man on the spot like that. It was not a question Leo wanted to answer. But it was a useful sort of discomfort, pushing across the line Yuliang danced along, and crossing to the place where Leo would do something about it.

“Find a good book,” Leo said, after a hesitation that meant he’d discarded at least three prior ideas. “And then not deal with logistics for a little while longer, if that’s allowed.”

“Of course it’s allowed,” Yuliang said. “What kind of book? Even if you don’t want to go all the way to Shal-Mari, I know some great little bookstores here in Stygia.”

“Any kind of good book,” Leo said. “Something without anyone naked on the cover.”

“Now you’re just contradicting yourself,” Yuliang said, so honestly delighted at the opportunity for teasing that Lanthano nearly smiled at it and lost his chance.

“Would you mind picking up something like that?” Lanthano asked. Innocent and straightforward, not that it would fool the other Impudite for an instant. “We’re stuck here until Leo’s Heart gets moved in. Security reasons and all that. I mean, if it’s not too much trouble. We could probably send a secretary out with a description of the right sort of thing.”

Yuliang’s glance narrowed for an instant. He’d pay for that, some time. Worth it. “No problem at all,” she said, and slipped to her feet. Kissed Leo on the forehead, a sweet move that established dominance and affection all at once. “Won’t be long. You take care, okay? Don’t let Thano here get you into any trouble with his wild ways.”

“I’ll be on guard,” Leo said, and he managed some sort of reciprocal amusement. Faked or not, it was a good sign.

His expression didn’t fall inward when Yuliang left. Only turned more thoughtful again. Letting a piece of the mask drop away, though he hadn’t had the energy to put up much of one in the first place.

“She means well,” Lanthano said. It was the sort of line that was expected, under the circumstances. Company unity was almost as important as company loyalty, and the statement was...reasonably true.

“I know,” Leo said. “She thinks I should be--” He stopped, and rubbed his face with the back of a hand. “Have we run through the office supply of hot chocolate yet?”

“Not yet,” Lanthano said. He stood up, and collected the mugs. “Tell me if you want the barista to start adding rum to the mix.”

“If I’m going to be talking work with a Knight at any minute, best not.”

Lanthano nodded. And on--well, he couldn’t call it impulse, but it wasn’t entirely calculation, either, he leaned down to kiss Leo himself. On the lips, more like an equal. The _calculation_ was in leaving it at that, breaking away after a moment, and not dropping down on the futon to forget the beverage request (which was so clearly and politely a request for a moment alone) and make some requests of his own.

“It’ll be okay later,” he said. “Even if it’s not right now. And later might be--not for some time. But you’ll get there. It’s a place you get closer to just through being here and time passing. Even if it’s like crawling through mud.”

Leo smiled up at him crookedly. “Uphill,” he said. “In the snow.”

“All the more reason for hot chocolate,” Lanthano said, and left to do the sort of job he could’ve sent any human in the office to do for him. But the point was to give space. Give it and take it away again, until matters settled down. He had been lying, somewhat. _Okay_ wasn’t a place you moved towards in a linear fashion, but a point on the journey when you finally said, yes, good enough, I’ll stop here and make it home.


	7. In Which The Wheels Of Bureaucracy Are Inescapable, Even While Working For A Word Named After Its Disregard For Basic Property Rights And By Extension Systems Of Authority And Official Organizational Processes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally uploaded this chapter without having put in the previous one. Which is now there! But you may want to back up a chapter and make sure you've read that one.

Dissonance condition aside, I could spend a week like this. Wings draped lazily to either side of me, shoulders propped against Lanthano's chest and his legs stretched out around me. My bare feet in Julie's lap--Yuliang, I should remember, and her name's easier to pronounce in Helltongue than in its corporeal version--while she explains border disputes among Hell's aristocracy to me. I'm not really following, but following isn't the point, and Lanthano's kind enough to take up all the weight of making interested noises at the right points, while I read my books.

I'd run out of reading material in a lot less than a week. And I have, I think, about sixteen hours left before I need to hike _somewhere_ to avoid dissonance. Which is not a trip I want to contemplate, because that means going outside--not just of this room, but of the whole territory the Marquis controls, and--well. There's no use thinking about that.

Not when I can spend a few hours pretending everything is fine exactly like it is, and that I could stay here forever. Near enough to forever. Everything ends, so the closest you get to forever is always in terms of percentages, and I haven't lived all that long. It's something I could get close to yet, if I play my cards right.

Yuliang ignores a knock on the door, because she's right in the middle of a story about a particularly sneaky hostile takeover of territory done by some Baron from Factions entirely through cons and suborning people on the inside. Lanthano checks his phone rather than abandoning me to answer it personally. And either there's a message waiting, or he's got a feed from a door camera, because he taps out something on his phone and says, "Some people know how to knock."

"Some people aren't very good at Theft," Yuliang says sweetly, and sinks a little deeper into her sprawl on the futon, which has been transformed into something more like a bed with armrests to fit the three of us comfortably. She hooks a foot more firmly over my knee. "Besides, isn't that Zee's line?"

"Just saving time," Lanthano says. He rests his phone on my shoulder, knuckles paling against it. Less than sixteen hours, I'm sure, before he gets absolutely fed up with having too many people in his space. I'd apologize for bringing all this on him if I were particularly sorry, but I'm not. I'm getting too much out of his forbearance to regret asking for it in the first place.

I close my book--a Helltongue translation of some Russian novel about improbable creatures--as the door opens. No surprise that in her true form, Zabina looks much like her vessel; I'm the odd one out in that regard. If Calabim are ragged red versions of Impudites, with more inconvenient horns, a Lilim is merely a green Impudite who doesn't bother with wings.

The real surprise to me is that she's dressed several cuts lower in formality here in the office than I've ever seen her on the corporeal. (Disquieting reminder of the hour: I've only seen any of these people in very select circumstances, before, and I can't extrapolate too far from their behavior there.) She's as neat and put together as ever, but in a way that suggests a weekend at home rather than dressing for what anyone else would see. Every bit of jewelry on her, a few thin bracelets and rings in both ears, is a tiny Geas.

If Zabina's bound by any large Geases, like the one on my ankle that Lanthano's never asked about, they're not visible. (I'll have to explain that one to--well. Not yet.) She stands in the doorway, looking across the three of us, and ends up the recipient of some sort of wave from both the Impudites. Maybe I should. Maybe it doesn't matter, when I have this book in my hands.

"So nice of you to stop by," Yuliang chirps, and her toes turn in a little further. I'm so thoroughly entangled between the two Impudites I don't think I could get up in a hurry without sending at least two of us onto the floor. And all this with our clothes still on.

The Lilim ignores Yuliang entirely, and thus rather pointedly. "Are you sufficiently recovered to fill out paperwork?" she asks me.

"Sure," I say. It's even true. I would say that it's nice to see her again, which I'm still feeling is within the realm of plausible true statements, but it doesn't seem the time.

"Then stop by when you have a moment," she says. "Lanthano can show you the way." On which note she leaves us again as promptly as she arrived.

"Like that needed to be personally delivered," Yuliang says, and rolls her eyes. "What sort of Knight doesn't know how to _delegate_?"

One who wants to assess the situation in person before giving out commands, I think. And, depending on how vicious the office politics get, to make sure the message gets all the way to its intended recipient without being intercepted or altered on the way.

Lanthano's hands settle over my chest, loosely overlapping his phone resting between my ribs. I don't need any great skills at reading body language to interpret that gesture. And _when you have a moment_ is about the least urgent demand for my presence that I've ever received from a supervisor, brand new or otherwise. I could spend another hour here in finding a moment, and let Zabina think whatever she likes about why it took me that long.

There was a point in my life when I would have done exactly that. Pushed to see how far the pushing would go. It's a survival tactic of sorts, with a new supervisor; figure out what's too far, so that you know how far you can stray before getting smacked down. (It doesn't work with everyone. Althea had terribly strict limits, but they were concrete and could be learned. I rapidly gave up on trying to figure out the limits Captain Savas set, because there was no action I could take that wouldn't get punishment from him. Wasn't worth trying.) If Zabina is the sort of person who offers me some slack and doesn't mean it, best that I find out as soon as possible.

Except that I want this job to. I don't know. Last. Be something that doesn't fall apart. Keep on going as long as I keep on going, and so what if I thought that about all sorts of other situations that never proved to be stable? Nothing is stable and nothing lasts if you give it enough time. Calabite truism, right there, and it's not even in the sense Fate means it, but acknowledging that we're all...finite. Especially some of us with a bad habit of coming up with clever ideas and thinking we know better than our superiors.

Anyway, my point is, I'd rather prove myself a little responsible to Zabina than find out what makes her angry, at least on the first day of the job. Even if it means untangling myself from being the comforted center of attention, and there's little I've ever found before so comforting as two Impudites paying pleasant attention to me at once. The Balseraph resonance has to get involved for it to be much better than this.

"I'd better go see what she needs," I say, because if I don't, I'm never going to move.

"Nothing interesting," Yuliang says. "What's the rush?"

"First day of work. I should show up promptly and wear a tie." I slide my knees up to my chest, untangling from Yuliang first, and she doesn't try to stop me. "The tie may be metaphorical." And Impudites, wanting attention even more than I ever do, should not be given a reason to feel they're being snubbed. "Anything I should watch out for? She didn't seem like the type to let the heady rush of power get to her, but you never know."

"Oh, she'll be fine," Yuliang says, with a grudging little sniff for the whole concept of Zabina having acquired that rank first. She can hardly claim otherwise, after insisting I could wait. "Though I suppose she's exactly the kind of person who'd watch to see how long you took to get over there, and she won't do anything about it, it'll just be all that silent judging she's so into. You _do_ get vacation time, Lee, and don't you let her forget that. You've never been to Shanghai, have you?"

"Never," I say. "Maybe I'll finally get to fix that." I hope without having to deal with cross-continental flights. The last time I had to fly anywhere, the whole time we--it wasn't much fun.

Lanthano stands up, and takes me with him. Nothing so crass as hauling me along, but he has the knack for offering help up that makes it seem perfectly natural to follow him, and as if he's the one who had the idea to leave the futon in the first place. And once he's up, it's simple enough for him to give Yuliang a sweetly polite goodbye and show me the way to Zabina's office.

I wonder how many people in this company underestimate Lanthano, just because he's not ambitious.

"Vacation days?" I ask him, in the hallway. "Actual scheduled vacation days?"

"They're in the handbook," he says, and I can't tell if he's joking or not.

#

There is an actual employee handbook.

It's the first thing Zabina gives me once I'm seated in her office. She has a suite with two rooms curtained off, and a human secretary whose smile is so perfectly fixed I can't read any actual emotion beneath it.

But in the office, with the secretary out of sight and earshot, Zabina is as much at ease as I've ever seen her. I cannot imagine her slouching, but there's a qualitative difference between her in this room of her own, and her back in that cramped condo in Seattle. She's in control here, in a way she wasn't there, and I think that's what makes all the difference.

"You have to be kidding me," I say. It's a yellow binder that appears to have been assembled with technology that was outdated before I was created. The contents may well be mimeographed. "Since when does Theft do paperwork?"

"It's impractical to run an organization beyond a certain size without it," Zabina says, with a one-shouldered shrug. "Why do you think so many mobsters were imprisoned over tax evasion? Even they needed to write things down."

"I would consider that an argument against a paper trail, not for it." I flip through the book. There is, as promised, a section on vacation time. Leave of absence for personal reasons. Bonuses. Sick leave--that seems to mostly be about Trauma, and Essence insurance arrangements for healing major injuries. "Nothing in Theft is really screaming 'document me thoroughly' to my ears."

"Think about it for a moment, Leo," she says. And, having said that, turns to work on her laptop. The VapuTech logo on its back flickers irregularly as she types.

So I do think about it, since I'm missing something obvious, and I hate it when someone else has to point that out to me before I figure it out myself.

The key--and the reason I didn't pick up on this immediately--is in remembering that the paperwork isn't for the corporeal. This employee handbook couldn't be taken to Earth, doesn't exist there, and doesn't _matter_ there. I'm too used to thinking of everything through the lens of what happens on the corporeal plane, and Hell's aristocracy...well, they care. It matters for the power of Words, and as a way of keeping score, and to keep the enemy distracted, but it's not where they're playing their game.

I suppose you could say that's the key, too.

"When the Game comes asking inconvenient questions," I say, "the paperwork's all in order. Everything is documented. Stacks of dull, reliable forms saying what you've been doing and where and to whom and how, that prove you couldn't have been up to whatever they accused you of. Not that it's ever proof enough, if they don't want it to be, but it's a good stopgap and distraction. They end up looking to disprove what's on paper. Which is harder to pull off quickly than a he-said she-said between the Game and some Magpie hauled in for investigation."

"The Game's not the only one who comes asking," she says. "But that's part of it." She takes out a folder, and offers it across to me next. "You'll need to fill out everything in here. The places to sign are marked."

Someone--most likely her secretary--has indeed put colored tabs next to every single line that needs my signature. I can't remember the last time I signed my name in Helltongue sigils, though it can't have been...I don't know. Maybe it could have been a very long time ago. This didn't come up much when I was working for the War.

"Do you have a pen?"

She offers me one in silver. "Though the signatures will have to be in blood. There's a separate pen for that."

"How traditional."

"Tradition, like paperwork," Zabina says, "is a useful defense at times. Read the handbook if you'd like, but it's not particularly important. What matters isn't written down."

"Well, we are in Theft." I start filling out meaningless entries in this particular form of defense. "Never writing things down is traditional too."


	8. In Which We Do Not Drink Coffee

The Theft Tether in Dresden stands about a kilometer from a cafe that is in turn the front for a series of rooms where the local Thieves store what's too hot to carry with them. This goes some way towards explaining why Zabina has chosen to seat us in a place with mediocre coffee--I can tell that much, and I don't even like coffee--and worse service. I have not touched my drink since the first sip, and don't intend to.

I'm wearing a jacket we picked up at the Tether, and it's perfectly competent to dealing with the weather outside, which is downright balmy for this time of year. So there's no good reason for me to start shivering every time we step foot outside a building here.

We've been to two museums and more interesting architectural sights than I'll be able to remember tomorrow. We have talked about nothing but art, traffic, and history, and those only in terms that wouldn't draw undue attention from unAware passersby. It has been the strangest day I've had in some time. Because this--is so easy. So ordinary.

I could have come here any time to do this.

The Tether was always there, and the Seneschal's downright relaxed about taking people through. (It's a known Tether, on both sides, and so well-established and minor both that no one bothers to harass it.) It's a day trip. Call it two sunsets, and that's all the Essence regained for what was spent on travel through another Tether and back again. Not knowing German is awkward, but a long way from making navigation in the city impossible. We could have stopped by any time. Here. Places like it. And I was the only one who didn't know.

Or I knew there must be options like this, and never asked. Because asking is always dangerous. If you don't ask the question, you can't get an answer you don't like.

"Tell me," Zabina says, "what you're not thinking about." She smiles thinly at me, across this dingy table in a cafe too dingy for what she's wearing. I suspect that's real fur. "Because what's on your mind is upsetting you, and this isn't the place for it. Wait until you have a room of your own and a door that closes. So talk about something else."

"Give me a little more of a guideline than that," I say, before I can find myself in one of those _Don't think about pink elephants_ tangles.

"No," she says. "Find a topic yourself."

"Because that's a test."

"Everything that happens in life is either a lesson or a test," Zabina says. "Some are both. Is that your topic?"

I shake my head, and stare past her to the grimy window on the far side of the shop. Let's not think about pink elephants. Well. There's a Lilim sitting across from me, so there's one obvious direction to go with the conversation. "Freedom."

"A rather broad topic," she says, "but acceptable. What about it?"

"I don't understand why they get along with us better than anyone else. In both directions, at that. We're the ones taking what we haven't paid for, kidnapping people, and breaking trust. They're the ones throwing open the cages, paying their debts, charging for what they do, and making sure those contracts are solid on both sides. The Game has more in common with Theft than they do. So what do they find so endearing about us, that they'd throw in with us in a way no one else in Hell ever does?"

"The two Words are complementary," she says. "All Words large enough to be held by Superiors exist on a scale of internal versus external. Those which are internal need only an object; those which are external need opposition. Freedom, Theft, the Game, and the War are the best examples of external Words. Lust, Greed, and Fire are purely internal. There is no meaning to Theft without property rights; taking what no one owns isn't theft at all. Lust can exist without reciprocation. You may be greedy for another man's assets, or for the contents of an uninhabited forest." She pauses a moment. Making sure that I'm following, and when she sees that I am, she continues. "Theft and the Game could be as complementary as Theft and Freedom, but the Game chooses not to view us as such. Perhaps the feeling is mutual. The Game and the War do at least acknowledge that they need an opponent to have any meaning or power. Single-person games, and wars, are of little use to either Word.”

I turn my cup around, as if that might make the contents taste better. “But why does Freedom need opposition? There are all those sayings about wild birds being free and so forth that imply ignorance and lack of opposition would do just fine.”

“One might read the Word that way,” Zabina says, “but the holder of it does not. Which affects the Word, just as there can be two Superiors with the Word of Fire who are less than identical. Do you know any of the Rites of Freedom? Or the ways to better call Lilith’s attention to you?”

“A few.” I worked with or for Lilim of Freedom, now and again, and spent more time envying them than I should have. There’s always a catch, and it’s not like I wasn’t aware of most of theirs. But the ones you haven’t gotten sick of dealing with already seem easier to live with.

“You can’t overthrow a government without one being set up,” she said. “You can’t set a prisoner free without someone locking him behind those bars in the first place. There is no dissonance in taking freedom from another, or selling your own, so long as you do it of your own choice. And I knew one sister who did fine business in catching and caging birds so that there would always be a few ready for her other sisters to release, when they needed to speak with Freedom.”

“So we’re ally by means of opposition. And they can sell someone out to us, and then charge that person for the rescue, and everyone walks away happy. Except for whoever was just screwed over twice.”

Zabina shrugs. “As above, so below.” I notice she’s not drinking her coffee either. “It is the nature of power to damage those who don’t have it.”

“And so every power relationship is inevitably damaging?”

In retrospect, not the question I should be asking of this person at this time. I can almost forget, for several seconds at a stretch, that anything has changed. It’s just conversation, like I could have with anyone willing to participate.

But if that’s a test I’ve just failed, she’s not making any indication of it. “If viewed purely in terms of power differentials, yes. Nothing is that simple, and nothing, as one Archangel found out to his own detriment, is that pure. We are thinking beings of free will.” She pauses, with a flicker of a smile. “Which may be what drives the Archangel of Fire mad, more than sharing a Word. Looking into a future that constantly changes must make reality itself look...simple.”

She does take a sip of her coffee now, and the slight change to her expression suggests she’s regretting the choice.

“Take this city as an example,” she says. “Where was the power relationship when the bombs fell? Sitting with a handful of men in the airplanes above, compared to the mass of women below. That’s _simple_ , Leo. When the city rebuilt afterwards, and insisted on putting up what had been destroyed before--knowing how simply that could be destroyed again, by a few men making their own decisions--that was free will and determination. There was power in those decisions, too, and in the weight of stone hauled into place. The power to direct different men to pour concrete and melt glass, draw out plans and paint walls, until the old has been remade and some things have been formed entirely new. Power is as damaging as fire, and just as useful when directed properly.”

“The difficulty,” I say, “presumably lies in agreeing on what ‘proper’ is.”

“There would hardly be a War otherwise,” she says. “Whatever the official line is on either side, wars don’t start over opinion. They start when someone applies power to enforce their opinion.”

There’s nothing of interest out that cafe window. But it’s still a city that I had never seen before today, on a continent I’d never visited. Never mind the universe, confine myself to this one tiny flyspeck of a planet inside all of the corporeal plane, and there’s still a million places I’ve never been. All of them constantly changing and remaking and unmaking themselves, so that even if I did see them all, by the time I was done there’d be something new in the place I’d been before.

“Do you think there will ever be an end to the War?” I ask her, which is one of those unwise questions. “Laying down the weapons and rebuilding on both sides. Turning off martial law and going back to ordinary sorts of disagreements, where no one sets an entire city on fire to prove their point.”

“No,” Zabina says. “I don’t think there ever will be, unless all of us are dead and gone. They won’t stop, and we’re not allowed to.”

On which note we stop and contemplate our respective drinks, and I wonder if this change of career has increased my lifespan or shortened it. In terms of probability, since there’s no knowing when something from the past will finally catch up with me. Some day when Sean gets bored and decides to track me down and drag me to a Tether and see if I char before I beg for a chance to swap sides...

I wonder how much the Marquis knows about Sean. She has to know that I didn’t sign up with Theft when the official story says I did. And that means what Zabina knows--I don’t know what she knows. Not by a long shot.

At some point, she’s going to ask questions where I’ll have to decide if I lie or not.

“Work to do meanwhile,” I say, because if the silence stretches much longer, I’ll start thinking about uncomfortable things.

“Work to do before the real work,” she says. “It’s a pity we haven’t the time to do this in the proper order, but we’ll manage.”

Now there’s a statement just waiting for a question. I oblige. “What would the proper order be?”

“Latin, Greek, and the classics,” Zabina says, “and then moving through German, the Romance languages, and Dutch. After that, we’d move on to Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese, and I suppose you’d want to pick up Korean for Lanthano’s sake.”

“Is the proper order entirely about learning more languages?”

“Language directs thought,” Zabina says. She slides her coffee to the edge of the table, where it will either be picked up eventually by someone working at the cafe, or fall over the edge when the table is jostled. I don’t think either of us cares which. “We will have to train you rapidly for what’s immediately necessary, instead, and fill in the background as time allows.”

I set my cup next to hers. Two unfinished coffees, balanced on the edge. “And what’s immediately necessary?”

“Organizational logistics,” Zabina says. “Are you ready to go?”

She’s not talking about our coffee or the city. But it’s easier to pretend she is. “We can always come back later,” I say. “Ready when you are.”


	9. In Which Object Permanence And I Continue Our Long-Standing Disagreement

The branch of an evergreen rests just outside my window, so close that the light inside picks out its needles and the window outside sends those same needles scraping against the glass. The outside of this building is all stone and tradition. The inside is bright and modern. Neither is much like any place I’ve lived before.

Zabina’s house--maybe I should call it her estate--has as much in common with my college dorm room, or the battered little house I shared with Katherine, as a pair of rat terriers do with a wolfhound. I feel that I have walked out of one type of world into another, and I’m still not sure how that happened.

This room is mine. It’s not _mine_ , but it’s the place where I can keep what I like, within Zabina’s territory. A room with two rugs rather than carpeting, a bed and a set of bookshelves, a desk that already holds a computer I haven’t touched. (A place where I can keep what I like and which Zabina approves of having in her house, and what she thinks I ought to have.) One shelf is already full of books, while the others are bare and accusatory. Just moved in to hold whatever I come up with next.

“And whenever you want to put up any art,” says Giovanna, the wide-eyed little Hellsworn who acts as Zabina’s secretary, “just let me know, and I’ll get it all set up. Because with the way the walls are--well, I’ll get it taken care of. Is there anything you need? Or that I can get for you?”

“I’m fine.” I flash her a quick smile. That one’s on automatic. “I’ll let you know.”

“I’m right down the hall,” she says. “Don’t worry about knocking, any time of night! I’m a light sleeper.” She delivers this line so earnestly that I’m still trying to figure out if that was an invitation or meant exactly as its face value when she’s gone.

Her English is much better than my German.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. Harder mattress than most hotel rooms I’ve been in. Presumably I could change that if I cared, though I don’t see how it could matter. Or what the room is decorated like, or...things. The sorts of things people do in their own rooms.

I am trying to remember what I used to do with rooms. There was that place in Heliopolis, where redecorating was as easy as thinking of what I wanted. And so was the creation or destruction of every object around me, even aside from resonance use. Nothing worth keeping, except a board for playing games with Ferro. (I hope it’s still okay, and that it found some sort of eternal racetrack out there in the Marches.) The odd rooms with Ferro and Nik before that, with token furniture and the cage of mice and a few odd bits of useful things for Nik’s human hosts. Or the house with Katherine. That was a proper Role. I had clothes and books, dishes and her toys and--the sorts of things human keep around.

Not a lot of electronics. We did keep the television working until Katherine shot it.

Pine needles scrape against the window. It’s such an odd time for it, but I miss Nik. She was clingy and stubborn and had the most peculiar moral objections to jobs, but she was so damn reliable. If she were the one scratching on the window I’d know what to do.

I miss having a Kyriotate watching my back. Shedim aren’t half as useful, and they can’t be in even half as many places at once.

I wonder if he can still find me.

I strip off my jacket and hang it across the back of the desk chair, then fling open the wardrobe to distract myself. Nothing hanging in there yet. It’s not as if they were expecting me. Most employees probably come with more warning. A resume, an interview, enough sense to accept a job the first time the offer is made. Or the second time. It’s some rare breed of employee who doesn’t show up until a month and change after the last offer, clutching a phone number and without enough shame to apologize for the tardiness.

I’ll need to find a change of socks soon, or switch to my other vessel. And I’m pretty sure that trying to buy socks in the city would turn into some sort of horrible comedy of errors. I could turn invisible and steal a set, but that seems like a lot of Essence used for something I could just ask Zabina about, and it seems utterly petty to ask her about _socks_...

You would not think, from the way I’m acting lately, that I’m an adult who can take care of himself. Who very well did, for a good stretch of time, while on the run from the Game and an angry ex and occasional angelic interference. I mostly stayed ahead of them. A lot of luck, but I knew how to fake humanity among the mortals and keep my head down and take care of myself without looking too much like a scary homeless man muttering to himself in an alleyway. I was competent enough for that.

It went a lot better once Nik was there.

So maybe I’ve engaged in some backwards motion since I joined up with Theft. And maybe it was my fault, maybe it wasn’t. What I ought to be doing now is figuring out how to make myself a reasonably valuable member of the team. Zabina seems like the kind of person who would appreciate a little proactivity.

I pull down a book from the one filled case. This was a guest room before; it’s a traveler’s guide to the city. Recent and glossy, largely untouched. Someone thumbed through the first dozen pages with dirty hands and then left a folded receipt marking their place. I smoothe the receipt out across my knee and try to parse the fading text. A gas station, I think. How appropriate for a Magpie on the move.

There’s another three days before I need to leave this place. Someone else will tell me where. I am not part of a wandering pair, with free time to spend on whatever jobs are offered between assignments directly from our Prince. I’m part of a structured organization, with a direct supervisor who reports to a Marquis who takes care of speaking to our Prince.

Maybe I’ll never speak directly with Valefor again.

That’s good, isn’t it?

The receipt’s a meaningless piece of trash. I track down the wastebasket by the desk, and dissolve it into that. The travel guide’s not much better; I don’t need to read the language to recognize the sort of overly peppy commercial prose that infests these sorts of books.

I didn’t mean to break it, but it’s in pieces in the wastebasket.

If Zabina asks, I’ll fess up to that one. And pay for it. Not that I have any money, but we’re Theft, aren’t we? I can get money. Or maybe there’s a salary. She’s not paying the heating bills on this building with her pickpocketing. Probably I should be asking about finances. Learning how to pay attention to those properly. With my first Role I had to budget, but that was mostly a matter of figuring out how often I could eat for Role maintenance and still be able to replace all the clothing I went through.

The cuffs of this shirt are fraying. Naturally. There is not a thing more natural in the world than everything I own falling apart. Maybe the natural state of a Calabite is to not own anything.

Except Valefor takes what he wants. Or delegates the taking to others.

Except Belial, whose Word is all but destruction itself, has territory and Servitors and buildings and _paperwork_.

Except Haagenti, who is another form of destruction, has territory and businesses and Servitors and Tethers and _expansion_. There is nothing about being a Calabite that precludes keeping something.

There is no reason, except maybe Zabina’s preferences for what goes inside her house, why I couldn’t fill one of those bookcases with the sort of thing I like to read. Why I couldn’t fill drawers with my own clothing, and swap it out often enough that it doesn’t decay too quickly. However long Zabina wants me to have this room, I could keep things in it that wouldn’t disappear when I wasn’t looking.

Probably. I’m still working for Theft.

An unreasonable, childish part of me wants to take every book off those shelves and decide which I want to keep. Break the rest and throw them away.

It’s not really my room. Breaking things just because I can is--adolescent. Nothing in here matters very much, and it might as well stay the way it’s been put by other people with stronger opinions on interior design. My opinions are more about the layout of the building, and it’s far too old to change any of that. They seem to have had enough trouble running modern wiring through the place.

Three people in this building, and this room’s so damn quiet. Why does anyone even need this much space? It’s not like there are a half dozen live-in servants anymore; Giovanna mentioned a cleaning service and a landscaper who stops by once a week. Maybe someone could tell the latter to cut back the tree that’s scraping at the window again. Unless a Kyriotate of Flowers has stopped by to say hello, it doesn’t actually want inside.

There’s no real use in hiding under the bed, is there?

Though I very nearly bolt there anyway at the rap on the door.

Which is not followed by someone walking inside. Someone has chosen to knock, and _wait_ , and I’m beginning to realize that this an entire topic of contention within the company. So I can rule out Yuliang standing outside the door, which was not hard to do anyway, since there are all of two other people in the house. If Giovanna has returned to make more helpful suggestions, I can be polite. And if Zabina wants something from me--maybe I could use some kind of actual task right now. Anything to distract me from the inside of my own head.

(Don’t think about pink elephants, Leo.)

I open the door, and catch Lanthano in the middle of pushing his hair back with one hand. It’s such an Impudite _pose_ , and he doesn’t look a bit ashamed. “I took some vacation time,” he says. “Can I come in?”

“How did you get here?”

I used to be able to produce polite sentences on cue. Must look into reacquiring that ability.

“Drove from the Tether,” he says. “I would’ve been by sooner, but I needed to double-check with Zabina. Since it’s her place, and all that.” He rocks on his heels, eyebrows lifted. Because I’m still standing in the doorway, and he’s not moving from the hallway yet. “If you need some space, I could come back--”

I grab his hand, and pull him inside. “No. Come in. It’s--good to see you.” Again. Like I didn’t just see him a day ago. Twenty or thirty hours, I’ve lost track with the time change from Hell. “All the way from home, just to see me? Or is that an excuse for trying the local beer?”

“It’s entirely about the beer,” he says. “No, Leo, it’s because I _like_ you, and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” I turn away to wave at the room. “Here I am, in...this place. It has furniture and everything. Do you want a drink? Zabina has this secretary who could probably locate the kitchen, since I haven’t yet.”

“I know where the kitchen is,” Lanthano says. He steps past me to pick up my jacket from the chair, and offer it back to me. “How was Dresden?”

“Full of art. I need to go back a few more times to do it any justice. But that one safehouse has the worst coffee yet.” I want to shove my hands into pockets that aren’t available, and settle for folding my arms. “I’m not cold.”

“You’re shivering,” Lanthano says. “Sit down.”

I sit down on the edge of the bed, where I can see the door.

He drapes the jacket over my shoulders. It’s too hot for this room. I’m not sure when I started shivering. “I was such a mess,” he says conversationally, “when Chaixin picked me up. Not the day of, or even when she got it into my head that she really meant the offer. That they weren’t going to kill me. It was a little after that, when I stopped bracing for the impact that wasn’t coming.”

“I’m fine, Lanthano.” I don’t think I can call him Trey anymore. That’s not really who he is. Just someone he was for a few weeks, while they worked out whether or not they wanted to keep me.

“Mmhmm.” He pulls the chair from the desk over so that he can sit opposite to me. Not beside me, where I’d prefer, but where he can look me in the eyes. “They would’ve given me a few weeks to pull myself together, but that’s not how it works in Theft. You have to keep moving. There’s no real option to _stop_ , so sometimes it’s like that poor kid you pulled out of that house. Running on a broken leg because it’s the only option left.”

“That’s how it goes.”

“Sure,” Lanthano says. “Right up until you got him into the car. Not a lot of breathing space, but it was there.” He leans in, hands on his knees. I don’t know why he doesn’t just sit next to me in the first place. “Do you remember what you told him?”

“A lot of nonsense,” I say. I watch him instead of the door. “I was trying to get him to calm down. Panicking doesn’t do any good.”

“Then I won’t quote you word for word,” Lanthano says. “The point is, you told him that we’d take care of him. And we did, didn’t we?”

“They were barely chasing us.”

“And if they had been,” Lanthano says, a gentle kind of relentless I’ve never seen from him before, “we would have figured out how to keep him safe. Because it was a rescue mission.”

I’m picking a hole in the knee of my pants. One more thing I’ll need to ask Zabina to replace. “I don’t need rescuing from anything, Lanthano.”

“I would ask you to look me in the eye and say that,” he says, and that’s actual exasperation in his voice, “except that you could probably pull that off. For a while longer. Leo. We have to keep moving. True enough. But you just got here. You have three days and a room of your own, and _no one_ will come in here without your permission. If you want to hide under the desk and snarl at anyone who comes too near, for seventy-two hours, you can do that. This is the breathing space you’re going to get, and there’s going to be _work_ later, and you will need to be ready for it. Which isn’t going to happen if you keep running on that broken leg.”

He wants an answer I don’t know how to give him.

“No one’s coming through that door,” he says. “You are with us now. Entirely. Your Heart’s in the same room you’ve seen where mine is. If anything’s coming after you--” He stops, and drags the chair nearer by the heel of his shoe. Knees against mine, his hands resting on my thighs. “You aren’t alone. You can stop. Just for a few days. And you have to, you really do, or you’re going to stop later when there’s no time for it.”

Even if I knew what I wanted, I wouldn’t know how to ask for it.

I lay my hands over his. So what if they’re shaking. Like he hasn’t noticed already. “All I need,” I say, because if I don’t say something I may well burst into tears, “is to stop breaking things. Which I can’t have. So there’s no use in talking about it.”

And that should stop the conversation. But Lanthano wraps his hands around my wrists, and says, “What sorts of things do you want unbroken?”

“Promises. People. Places.” I might start laughing, which is almost worse than crying. “Anything. I’m tired of getting rid of everything I ever l-liked to keep from breaking it.”

“So stop,” he says. And all I can do is blink at him. “Stop giving things up. You have _us_. The company’s survived through worse than anything you could do. We’re not like that Djinn who had you. He breaks people. That’s on him, not you. We put people back together. All you have to do is try, and you’ll be fine with us. The company’s bigger and tougher and more elegant than anything you’ve ever broken.”

I still don’t have any words for him. I’m supposed to be so clever.

“Promises,” he says, “only matter for people inside the company. If you really want help keeping them, you can ask Zabina to enforce them, but I think you’ll do fine with that once you don’t have anyone messing with your head.” He leans in until our foreheads are touching. No horns in the way, in this shape. Maybe I won’t have to go back to Stygia either. I wouldn’t mind keeping to the corporeal. “Things can be replaced. If you like it, we’ll get you duplicates. A sturdier version. This is all solvable, Leo.”

“People.”

“You’re going to have to try a lot harder to get rid of me,” he says. “Besides, I’m easy to find. I’ll give you my home address.” He drags my hands up, and sets them on his shoulders. His hands to my shoulders in turn. “We’ll have to make this work the old-fashioned way. Nothing Djinnish getting in the way. You trust me not to hurt you, because I like you. And I trust you’re not going to run away and refuse to ever speak with me again, because you’re not going to do that anymore. Though I couldn’t stop you if you did.”

“You know all the right things to say.” I want to be anywhere but here, with the door and the window and the empty bookcases. “And I don’t.”

“So don’t. Don’t do anything. You can stop.” He closes his eyes, face resting against mine. “All you need to do is decide it.”

“I didn’t want to leave him.” I don’t know if it’s true or not. I wish Penny was here. “I promised I wouldn’t.” Nobody else ever cares about the promises I make. “And what if I made the wrong choice and it’s too late to change my mind?”

“Then it’s too late,” Lanthano says. “Then you have to stay with us, and do your best here.”

Maybe he’s outside the door.

Maybe he’s already replaced me.

And I can’t even ask Lanthano, what if I’m not good enough? I don’t need to break the company. All I need to do is break myself. If nothing else gives--something always has to give. That’s how the resonance works. If I can’t hurt anything else, it spins right back and hurts me instead.

“It’ll be terrible,” Lanthano said. “For a while. Maybe for quite a while. There’s no getting around that. And then it will be less terrible.” He pushes the hair back from my face. “I’m not going anywhere, Leo. Unless you ask me to.”

There is no good reason for me to be crying. But I’ve made an awful lot of bad decisions in my life, for worse reasons. This one doesn’t even make the top ten.

He slides onto the bed beside me. Arms around me, chin on my shoulder. Where I wanted him to be, and I couldn’t ask. (Asking is dangerous. He’s not the one I want there.)

(Better him than otherwise. He’s safe.)

“All will be well,” Lanthano says, “and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” I’ve heard that before. I can’t place it. I don’t care. “They’ll just be terrible for a while first.”

“Promise me.”

“It’s true,” he says. “I promise.”

I wish he could make me believe him. But I try to believe, anyway. That’ll help. If I can manage it. Later.


	10. An Interlude, In Which Magpies Discuss Tactics

Zabina sifted through her email. In theory, a secretary existed in order to sort and judge correspondence; in practice, even the most loyal Hellsworn mortal couldn’t be expected to weigh the tangled, eclectic flow of Theft communication in a way that would meet her standards. She did not believe in holding employees or students to impossible standards. Ergo, she still checked her own email.

As mistress of the house, she did have a few privileges, and so she checked her email on a patio table beneath a lattice that held rose vines--brown and dry now, blooming again soon enough--with the late winter sun spilling across the flagstones to her left. A drink to the right of her screen, in the shade.

Once upon a time, she would have had a lapdog, a maid, a meek but clever friend, and a much larger set of gardens to look across. And in those days, she would have left her mail to her secretary for sorting. Her old colleagues had their own politics and complexities, but they were always predictable in their own ways. Greed did not lend itself well to caprice. It was all very well to ride the bubbles up, but not to pick them so carelessly that one was caught when they burst.

The approaching footsteps weren’t right for Giovanna. Nor did they sound like any of her occasional guests, Magpies who stopped for a night to trade cash and trinkets for her more respectable resources. Mad-eyed creatures for the most part, but useful. One kept up connections in the Word. It was only sensible.

She would have to teach the child how to make those connections. Those footsteps weren’t his, either.

Lanthano took a seat across from her at the table, feet set just so, the twist of an arm and the tilt of his head such that he was as precisely cast in light and shadow as a model with a photographer giving direction. The pose came as naturally to him as reading his Needs came to her. (There were arguments among her sisters as to whether anyone could have a truly unconscious Need, or merely ones they were in denial about. She believed the former was more likely.) “A few things broken,” he said, “but nothing important. I don’t suppose you have any walls you’d like removed?”

“No,” she said, “though if it’s absolutely necessary, I could arrange something along those lines.”

“Not that necessary.” He glanced at her drink, as if he regretted not bringing along one of her own. Giovanna could be called easily enough, as he well knew, but instead he continued, “It’s a good thing you called me in.”

“I thought,” she said, “that this would have been dealt with before I picked him up.” It was not an accusation, and she was careful not to let it sound like one. The newest Knight of the company could not afford to alienate coworkers at this point. Especially those with no Need to undercut or challenge her.

“Mm. Maybe we should have pushed. But he doesn’t feel safe in Hell.” The Impudite shrugged loosely; he was wearing the right sort of shirt for that move. It would impress someone else more than her, but she could not hold the practice against him. “He doesn’t feel safe here, either, and I don’t know where he _would_. That fucking Djinn’s still on his mind, and will be for a while.”

“You know how to manage that.”

“I know how to manage about half of that,” he said. Lanthano didn’t mince words around her, and she occasionally wondered if he preferred that freedom, or disliked that her preferences should push him to unaccustomed bluntness. “Running away from something horrifying, and not knowing how to deal with its lack? I’m an old hand at this part.”

“If you’re not careful,” Zabina said, “you’ll be named chief morale officer, and made responsible for everyone’s psychological health.”

“Lucifer forbid,” Lanthano said. He snorted, and it still sounded elegant from him. “The boss wouldn’t do that to me, since she already agreed that I don’t have to deal with Valentin.”

“Someone ought to,” Zabina said, and flicked away that line of conversation. “What half can’t you manage?” By which she meant, and did not need to make explicit, _What will I have to fix personally?_ She did not mind education. If she was honest to her own Needs, she _enjoyed_ the process of training the young to understand, think, learn from even more than what lessons she gave them directly. But she had neither experience with nor enjoyment of piecing together shattered fragments into something educable.

“The part where he wants to go back.” Lanthano looked up towards a window not visible from where he sat. He so clearly knew precisely where it lay, beyond the garden wall and tree that obscured it. “I haven’t run into that before. But that part, you understand well enough to deal with.”

From some people in the company, that would be an accusation. From Lanthano... she wasn’t sure which way to take it.

“I expect we’ll manage,” she said. “Will you want all three days?”

“Down to the hour,” he said. “And you should send him around visiting, once you have things set up. Not telling you how to do your job, but he _needs_ a social group. He’s spent too long not being allowed to make friends, and he might well try to fix on you the way he did with that--Djinn.” There was stronger language missing there, removed because he knew she didn’t approve of his preferred curses. Proper cursing had less sex and more religion.

“Would that be a problem?” Certainly it would be, but her reasons for believing so might not match his.

“It’s a short-term fix,” he said. “And the boss won’t like it if you build a team that’s looking entirely at you, starting with an employee who’s still afraid of _her_. Long-term, he’s not going to stay if he’s following one of those obsessive patterns again. He left that War Bal, he left the Djinn, and he’s a little too noisy about his own brand of clever to not be noticed by someone else who’ll want to steal him next. So we break the pattern before someone tries to pull him from us.”

“That would end poorly,” Zabina said.

“Let’s avoid it.” Lanthano shrugged, as if he was dismissing a now solved work problem. As if she couldn’t see how much he wanted to keep this one, unbroken and accessible. “I’ll drag him out for some distraction and shopping soon. He can do a few hours of looking put together, and I think--by the time three days are up, he’s not going to be _fixed_ , but there’ll be enough splints and crutches in place that he can get moving again.”

“So long as I send him out to visit his little friends,” Zabina said.

“Probably shouldn’t call Yuliang that where she can hear you.” That he said with too much amusement for there to be offense hidden behind it.

“No, we shouldn’t be anything but civil, especially in front of the children.” She picked up her drink. “Do you need cash?”

“I’m putting it on the expense account. Office supplies.” His smile was as charming as an Impudite’s should be, and she could appreciate the skill even while being immune to it. “Can I borrow your car?”

“If you’d like. Why?”

“It’s faster and shinier than the rental. I think he’ll like it.” Lanthano pushed back his chair, and stood. “Maybe you should get him a car of his own. Something like yours. Presents will make him flinch for a while, but the best way to get past that is repetition. And not taking them back.”

“Raised by wolves,” she said. “Except without the nobility and compassion of actual wild creatures.”

“Wolves couldn’t fuck with his head this much,” Lanthano said. Half a smile for her, without that glittering Impudite perfection she expected, and he strode away.

The confidence was as much a pose as anything else. That was Impudites for you; all masks and poses, all the way down. But they had Needs buried beneath those, like anyone else.

She dissolved a few hooks that had been set, more by instinct than inclination--her employer disapproved of holding them on coworkers without explicit agreement--and turned back to her computer, where the number at her inbox had climbed since she last looked. Sorting email was simple enough. She could put more thought into educational plans, and the recommendation of experts in human resources (and thus demonic resources), while picking through the mess.


	11. In Which I Get Moving

There is a certain terrible, dangerous freedom in letting someone else take complete charge. Doing exactly what you’re told without even thinking about it. Letting every worry be someone else’s, along with every responsibility.

I don’t think--no, I _know_ that’s not something I can keep up for indefinitely. Hell, I couldn’t keep it up for very long if I tried, and it’s not often that I want to try for more than about an hour at a stretch. (When I do it usually involves Balseraphs, and, well. Never mind that.) There’s more than one reason that I did so poorly in the War, but that one was on the list.

What I’m trying to say is that, yes, I spent almost two full days doing not a whole lot more than whatever Lanthano suggested--interspersed with embarrassing, mostly private meltdowns--but it doesn’t exactly constitute a pattern in my life. And since he didn’t push for more compliance when I started voicing my own opinions again, I don’t think he’s trying to make it a pattern either.

He’s just being...helpful.

Three days of being nothing but helpful, and I’m about to lose him again. Embarrassing that I care, and that I keep acting like this is more than professional behavior on his part. Stitching my collapsing mental state back together is pretty much his job. He’d do it for anyone his boss picked.

Our. Our boss.

“You’re thinking about something terrible again,” Lanthano says. He has no compunctions about asking Giovanna for room service, and is thus responsible for the plate of pastries that have made his fingers sticky. At this moment he’s engaged in a pretty sprawl across the whole of the loveseat he found somewhere in the house and hauled up to my room.

He’s rearranged the furniture as well as adding to it, and while the layout in this room hasn’t changed much, it feels less like a place for temporary, paying guests than it did before. And didn’t mind being told to pick up one end of the loveseat and help him maneuver it up the stairs.

“I am not. Are you going to eat all of those?”

“If you don’t come over and have one first, yes.”

So I leave my place at the desk and go take up half of the space beside him along with the last pastry. It’s something I can’t put a precise name to, and I’m still not sure if that reflects Giovanna’s tastes or Lanthano’s or Zabina’s or just some European habit that I really ought to be learning about. (The Marquis couldn’t have an American division? North American, anyway. Canada would be fine. I could learn to deal with Mexico, too.)

“There,” Lanthano says. “You’re doing it again.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” Lanthano says, “but you don’t have to tell me about it if you’d rather not.” Which is an unfair tactic, because he’s certainly figured out by now how well that works on me.

He is also licking his fingers clean, which is unfair in a completely different way.

“I’m having completely reasonable doubts about this new job I’ve signed up for,” I tell him, which is partially true, “because the last few times I switched careers suddenly it didn’t go so well. And because--it would be nice to think that I was hired for a reason other than annoying my, uh, former partner, but I can’t think of one.”

“You can’t,” he says, sounding skeptical in a way that borders on being impolite.

“Yes, I did a lovely job on that report, and it’s _done_. How often does the Marquis need an architect, anyway? Or an explosives expert. Last I checked, you didn’t spend a lot of time blowing things up. Or setting them on fire.”

“And raiding Tethers for select small items, that has nothing to do with Industrial Espionage.”

I slide around so that I can lean against him, and get sticky crumbs all over my lap without looking him in the eye. “I was never the Tether expert, you know. I tagged along and came up with a few wild ideas.”

“Which seem to have worked.”

“Except for when they didn’t, and I ended up with Malakim breaking my fingers again.” I hook my feet over the side of the loveseat. “Word of advice: stay away from Malakim. Dreadful people, all of them, and they take vessel loss really personally, despite getting off from it so lightly.”

“You’re changing the topic,” Lanthano says, and pets my hair with his presumably no longer sticky fingers. “You’re good at that. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that you bring no useful skills to the company--which isn’t true--you’re forgetting that you have Zabina looking after you. I’m pretty sure she’s up to the task of doing on-the-job training, and I’m entirely sure you’re up to the task of learning from her.”

“Probably.”

“When I came over from Lust,” he says, “I had a very narrow and focused skillset, and I wasn’t even very good at that. I wasn’t as clever then as you are now. Now look at where I got, starting from that. You really think you’ll do worse?”

He has a way of speaking about things that hurt him, that are far enough away that he can talk about them, that I’ve picked up on by now. The same way he can watch my face and figure out that I’m thinking about something other than how much I like his hands resting on me or the view out the window. Which is better in the daytime.

There are things that hurt him that aren’t far enough away. One thing, at least. I know better than to ask about that, and I’m learning what topics to avoid so that he doesn’t get too close to it on his own. It’s only fair. Whatever his reasons for being considerate, I can give him the same respect right back.

“I think that I would rather learn from you,” I say, and hope in a distant sort of way that Zabina doesn’t have the whole house bugged. “Except I don’t have the face or the language for Korea, and here I just don’t have the language. Or cultural background. Or education.”

“I could teach you how to do the Impudite thing,” Lanthano says. “Even in Korea. Get your vessel changed, work through all the social skills.” One of his hands slides inside my shirt, too casually to be starting anything now. (If I’d had my head fastened on straight, I would’ve started a lot more yesterday. Or the day before. But I was distracted.) “Actually using my Charm isn’t what it works on. That’s more for Essence and moving some pieces along a little faster. You _could_ do it. But it’d be a waste of your time and talents. Zabina will teach you more useful things.”

“She’s probably going to make me learn Latin.”

“She’ll _also_ teach you more useful things,” Lanthano says, cheerful and relentless all at once. “And you’ll come visit periodically, and I’ll come visit, so that you don’t get buried in textbooks.”

“If you really want me to stop by--”

“Leo,” he says, “if you keep implying that I don’t want you around, I’m going to...start sending you daily affirmations. I’ll _mail_ them, hardcopy, so that you can’t just filter them out of email, and print them up on the kind of landscape pictures they use for motivational pictures.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Demon,” he says, and I don’t have to see that thousand-watt smile to hear it in his voice. Which ends up reminding me of Ash, who...I should email. Or something. I wonder if he’s heard anything already. I don’t expect my job switch to be of much interest to many people at all, but he keeps an eye out for news about me.

Probably some day I can see Ash again. Unless I’m not supposed to travel to that continent anymore. I can ask someone when I can figure out how to make the question sound properly casual. (You’ve voluntarily signed up for a job with closer supervision and more restricted travel options, Leo. Good job.)

(No. There’s no such thing as closer supervision than you get from a Djinn.)

And if I don’t come up with a conversational segue soon, Lanthano will ask me what’s bothering me, and--well, I can’t go home with him, and I never really expected to. Even when he was trying to sell me on joining up, back in Seattle, he didn’t pretend to offer that.

“Does everyone in the company run around visiting each other regularly?”

“Maybe not everyone,” he says. “Most of us. And not everyone, just the people we like best, or whoever is nearby. The Japan division is pretty insular, but even they swing through other countries to say hello periodically. Yuliang visits _everyone_ , except for the people she doesn’t like, and there aren’t many of those. Wren comes to see me about once a month.”

“Wren?” I don’t think I’ve heard that name before. Probably haven’t heard the names of half the company yet, even in passing.

“Another Lilim in the company. She’s in Korea too. You might like her, though she’s fairly quiet.” Which is an interesting adjective to apply to someone, coming from an Impudite. I’ve never yet met a quiet Impudite.

“I should visit Yuliang.”

“You should,” Lanthano says. “You’ll come back home with twice the luggage. In fact, you can probably skip packing for the visit entirely.” He says this as if it’s natural and ordinary for me to have spare sets of clothing, and pack some of them along for trips. And probably it is. Most people do. “She’ll try to seduce you, of course.”

“I’ll probably let her.” I check my watch. It’s still set to Seattle time, but doing the math is easy. Too damn close to when Lanthano’s going to leave. “So, answer me this one honestly. What percentage of that will be an attempt to score points against Zabina?”

“Maybe twenty percent,” Lanthano says. And that’s why I do like him. One of the reasons. “On general point-scoring and territory-claiming reasons, all that hierarchical stuff, it goes up to about fifty percent. The other half’s split between general interest and personal interest. She does like you.”

“She likes the other vessel.”

“She likes _you_. Remember the part where you kept her from getting shot? Or her contact, which she would’ve taken even harder. She doesn’t like failing at a job, and that one would not have gone well with a bullet through that particular head. You get some credit, there.”

“Anyone in the company would’ve done the same.”

“Probably,” Lanthano says. “But you weren’t.”

Which is an interesting point, and a fair one. Damn him and his demonic logic. “So long as she doesn’t try to reward me by dragging me through clubs again, or hooking me up with her human friends.”

“Let her dress you up, and she’ll be happy.” Lanthano kisses me at the nape of my neck. “I need to head out.”

“Places to go, things to steal.”

“People to charm, cats to feed.” Another kiss, and he gets to his feet. I will not be such a pathetic mess as to cling now. “There’s a stray lurking around the back door lately, and I’d take her in if my current cat weren’t such a territorial little bastard who won’t tolerate competition. I don’t suppose you’d like a surprise package in the mail, in a week or two?”

“A meowing one? You’d need to clear that with Zabina.”

“Now that,” he says, offering me two hands up, “was a neatly done refusal. See, if you wanted a cat, I’d send one first, and then tell Zabina it’s absolutely vital to your emotional stability.”

I take his hands, and some small, perverse pleasure in getting his hands sticky again with mine. The hazards of glazed pastry. “Send it to Yuliang. She can make her own gifs.”

“She would probably leave it at some human’s house, and not be able to remember which,” Lanthano says. “Or dress it up with little hats.”

There’s a moment of silence as we both consider this.

“She’ll probably try to dress me up with little hats,” I point out.

“That’s a hazard of visiting.” He slides his hands around my waist, and then down below the waistband of my pants. The shared stickiness is only fair at this point, and I will take a shower--and change--before the next time I see Zabina. “I have to go.”

I do not say anything embarrassing, like _Not yet_ or _Don’t leave me alone here_ or _Can’t you wait another hour?_ If we didn’t get much done this visit except for my own personal nervous breakdown, that’s my own damn fault, not his. “Write. Presumably I have an email address, and at some point I’ll figure out how to check it.”

“Affirmations?”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” I say, just to get the smile out of him.


	12. In Which I Demonstrate Basic Competence While Under No Particular Pressure, Which At This Point I Should Get A Medal For Or Something

Zabina isn’t on the property, and Giovanna has a measuring tape. Given some discussions about fashion choices I’ve had with the Lilim in the past, I can’t help but feel these two details are related. But I am being a good employee, and so I’m lifting my arm or what not as Giovanna asks--asks, never tells, she’s the very model of a respectful and subservient Hellsworn, which I do not trust--so that I can be measured for some ominously vague set of future clothing.

I thought that what Lanthano picked out for me was fine.

If he were still here, rather than having left last night, he would tell me that I’m thinking about the wrong things again. He’d probably be right. Zabina’s absence makes me nervous, and there’s no good reason for that. She’s as much Theft as I am--more so, even if in an odd branch of it--and needs to keep moving too. She has work to do, quite possibly other humans to supervise, maybe even a project in process that I interrupted by suddenly needing babysitting.

And it does make me angry, as much at myself as anyone else, that I _do_ still need babysitting. No one’s told me to stay put and don’t touch, partly because it comes across as a challenge among Magpies, but it’s pretty clear that this is exactly what I’m supposed to do. No one’s given me any instructions. I haven’t even figured out how to get the laptop in the room to talk to me, since it’s password-locked and wasn’t the last time I saw it. (That it’s the same one as in Seattle I’m sure, because of the scuffs and scratches. It’s a hard life, belonging to a Calabite.) The closest I’ve gotten to direction is Giovanna’s ever so polite request that I let her get some measurements, because Zabina wanted that done.

Second-guessing my supervisor is a bad idea at this point. The Marquis may be willing to go to some minor effort to have her revenge on someone she dislikes, but I doubt she intends to waste resources carelessly. If she’s pulled Lanthano, who she clearly likes and trusts both, to pat me on the head and tell me everything will be all right for days at a time, then she doesn’t intend to throw away what I could do for her. Therefore she expects that Zabina will get some use out of me, in a reasonably non-destructive way. (At least in the short term.) Which means it does me no good to worry about what Zabina intends when I could be working on convincing her that I am, in fact, worth keeping around in the long term.

I can’t do that until I figure out what her expectations are. In that regard, absences are, if not quite ominous, unsettling. It’s not _unreasonable_ for me to be fidgety. I want a to-do list, a suggestion, something that I can start on. This isn’t like working for Ylva, where I always saw that arrangement as a place where I put in time until I could, ha, prove to my Prince that I was ready to work on my own.

Reflecting on my time in Fire isn't useful right now.

I need a distraction.

"What do you do for Zabina?" I ask Giovanna, while she's measuring the lengths of my individual fingers for reasons that escape me.

"Whatever she tells me to do," says the human. It's a quick response, and thus a pat one. A safe one around demons of unknown danger levels.

(Zabina trusts me not to damage her servants or her house when left unsupervised. In which she's right, but that says something. Not much. But something.)

"What does she tell you to do?" It's rude to push when someone is clearly avoiding the topic, but I'm not an Impudite, and what charm I have available to deploy is designed for use with humans who don't know about the War, or what I am. It's not going to work half so well on someone who looks at me and classifies me as a demon of unknown reliability and potentially explosive temper.

Not inaccurate, I have to admit. But my temper doesn't go off on humans. (I hadn't thought about that before, but my memory, patchy as it sometimes is, suggests it's true.) I've saved the excessive retribution and casual murder for people who are in my weight category, ever since...oh, when did that change? It wasn't true when I worked for Fire properly.

I guess it changed around when I started temping for the War. Or around when I picked up responsibility for Katherine. It would be nice to find a way to blame it on Regan or the War, but I'm pretty sure it's more about that kid. You can't go acting like an Impudite with human pets for all that time and not have some of their attitude rub off on you, even if they're not there in person to suggest it.

Giovanna has used measurements and their recording to give her a brief excuse for not answering, and she crouches down to whip the tape around my ankle--not looking up at me--before she finally says, "She has me do all sorts of things. It would be difficult to list them. Whatever needs to be done that's within my capacities."

Implied: Zabina is not the sort of boss who tells people to do things they aren't capable of. At least with her human servants.

That's the conclusion Giovanna would like me to come to, rather than asking her what, exactly, some of those things are. Which means some of them are things she doesn't want me asking from her. And since I'm increasingly sure that she's been making certain offers--there are other things she doesn't want to offer, that I can't come up with. That she believes I could ask for.

No, not necessarily that she thinks Zabina would _let_ me demand, but Anthony made demands of me that my partner didn't approve. "Let" isn't always the ruling factor when demons decide they want something. And while all Hellsworn are terrible people, to one extent or another, I have no particular desire to press so hard she ends up distraught. Wouldn't come across well to Zabina.

The Lilim appreciates self-control, nearly as much as education. That I've figured out already. So I will be a model of decorum, even if I'm more in the mood to throw crockery--not at anyone, just on general principle--and _let_ her servant do the measuring in peace.

Giovanna finally gets all her numbers entered into the phone, and sits back on her heels, still watching my knees more than me. "Would you change vessels?"

No, thank you. "Why?" I could guess, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm wrong about all sorts of things.

"I need to get measurements for both vessels," she says. Eyes down, as polite as possible, and--I suspect she's been warned that I wouldn't like the request. (Zabina's too damn sharp, sometimes. Yuliang and Lanthano are better at social push and manipulation, but that Lilim _sees_ what's going on better than they do. And not just through resonance.) Makes me all the less happy with this setup that she's already expecting me to be difficult.

I'm not sure if I meant Giovanna or Zabina, there. Both. Either. I don't want a reputation for being petulant or unreasonable, and I don't want a reputation as a pushover, and I just have no good instinct for where the line between the two lies. Different places for different Words and people, at that, which doesn't help.

Every time I ever disagreed with my partner, I was being childish. Every time I ever disagreed with Regan, I was being stubborn and having problems with authority. But no one will respect me if I do exactly what I'm told without argument at every turn. That's not what demons do. Not ones who are worth anything.

Hell.

I switch vessels before the pause can stretch so long that this becomes horribly awkward. And realize, as soon as Giovanna stands up, toe holding down the edge of the tape to get my exact height, that she's taller than me. Of course. Who isn't, in this vessel?

I haven't had this vessel on in days. A little unusual, because it's usually my primary. It might become so again. I'm not the one who gets to decide that. But I've been able to feel like I'm myself, for days at a stretch, and I don't like going back. Everything about this body is _wrong_ , even more than being stuck in my celestial form with wings and horns I don't know what to do with. The wrong size and shape and pieces and balance, the wrong way for people to react to me.

It's not that I want everyone to treat me like the stereotype of my Band, all the time. But I like having the option of projecting some power and danger without having to set people on fire to prove my point.

"I'll need you to take off that shirt," Giovanna says, ever so tentative and subdued. So there's one person who's treating me exactly like I'm a Calabite, despite the vessel. I'm not going to hurt her. (I might well get verbally snippy if this goes on much longer.) "So that I can measure things accurately."

I strip off the shirt. Like it matters here. Nudity has never been a problem, except for how humans respond to it. And not just humans. "Pants too?"

"No, just--" Giovanna hesitates. "I mean, yes, your jeans. Please."

Which means taking off my shoes, too, and I end up standing around in my socks while Giovanna whips through measurements much, much faster than she had for the other vessel.

She expresses her thanks for my assistance--a polite way of saying "cooperation", there--in crisp language that avoids mumbling through what I would guess is training. Zabina is not the sort of person who wants people stumbling over their words in her presence. I pull my clothes back on, and wonder how much it's worth the Essence to switch back.

It's entirely worth the Essence. The disturbance wouldn't build up too much, with the amount of time that's passed between the two changes. And oh, how very clear it would make my preferences on the matter.

I grab a bottle of water from the kitchen and take to the garden with a book. That lasts ten minutes before I admit that it is too fucking cold to sit outside in this outfit, and so I retreat back to my room, which doesn't look like anything I'd put together for myself, but how would I even know what sort of thing I'd put together for myself?

It looks like a room Lanthano would put together for me, given a few days and limited resources, and that's something. A new throw across the foot of the bed, the loveseat in the corner, the desk moved so that I can see out the window and see the door too while I'm at the computer. (I must find out what the password is on that.) There's the jacket Zabina bought me in Dresden, far too big for this vessel, and a different fashion from the ones Lanthano bought me here. (I don't have good words for the differences in fashion. If I had to distinguish the two, I'd say that the one Zabina picked out is for people with money having a leisurely day outside in the cold, and Lanthano's is for going out in search of someone to fuck.) I pull the one from Zabina on and roll up the sleeves far enough that I can turn the pages of a book.

I end up in the loveseat with that throw over my knees, and realize that I left my shoes back in the room where Giovanna was doing the measurements. She's probably thrown them out by now. There were holes starting to wear through in the toes and the soles both, but I liked those shoes. Decent for fast getaways, decent for climbing up to third-story windows. Not great for either, but I've never had very good gear for anything but driving away from the scene of the crime. Even if he can't drive them worth a damn, Zhune can pick out cars.

I press my forehead against my knees, and think about...other things. Pink elephants. Looking waifish and delicate in this vessel, and how much it annoys me. Not having any shoes that fit me, but an incoming wardrobe I'm sure to hate. What Lanthano must be up to right now. What Ash must be up to right now, and when it'll be safe to ask about contacting him, or what I can tell him.

God, what am I going to tell Penny? I can't tell him anything. I don't think the Marquis has any interest in toying with him the way my partner did--god, I hope she doesn't want that kind of thing--and I'm not willing to defy her the way I did Zhune. She knows more. She can _find out_ more. It would be like defying my Prince. (Which I have. Discreetly. Best not to think about it. Can't change that now.) It's not like I can send Penny an explanatory letter, and what's he going to think if I just drop out of contact?

Probably nothing in particular for a while. I've done that before. Months and years without contact. Really, it's a wonder that he still cares, when we talk so infrequently. You'd think he would have found a better target for his--whatever it is he feels about me, by now. Some nice new-redeemed in Heaven who's already on the same side as him. A Renegade demon who's willing to stop by a Tether and talk. A pleasant coworker he can talk to about--whatever Traders talk about. Not demons, I think. But he should have people to talk to.

I'm sure he does. He's an angel. Everyone knows that even the solitary ones can call on others for help. Complicated webs of association without the same prices there are among demons, because angels are so fucking selfless they're willing to give up bits of themselves without getting anything in return, except maybe the warm fuzzy feeling that it's for the cause. It's a terrifying concept, really. How do they know when to stop?

He has other people, and it may make him unhappy to lose the chance he'd like to have with me, but it won't _hurt_ him. Not for me to drop out of contact. I mean, it won't hurt him in any significant way. And I don't owe him anything, even if I've taken advantage of his willingness to listen once in a while. Cut off the connection for his safety as well as mine, and that'll be the end of it, and he'll find someone else to worry about. Someone who can benefit more from the concern. I never promised him I'd come home with him.

Exactly like I told Lanthano. But those were always mutually exclusive offers, from those two.

It's not that I meant to choose one of them over the other. But that's the way it turned out. So long as I was still running around with that Djinn who it still hurts to think about (oh, let's be honest, hurts not to think about too), they were both possibilities. Which meant I could think about either and take neither and leave things...possible.

But here I am, signing my soul over to a Marquis who terrifies me, who wants me for purely practical reasons, so that I can have an occasional visit with one of those two.

It's probably the right choice. Penny never promised me anything from himself as reward for joining up with his side. And how could he? If I'd tried that, there's a decent chance I wouldn't have lived through the process. Or I might've made it through Force-stripped, trapped in Heaven with no Corporeal Forces, or peeling off Ethereal Forces and losing my memory, my mind, my ability to think anything through, everything that makes me myself--

Of course it's the right choice. It's too late to change my mind, so it _has_ to be the right choice. I can regret losing the rare, peculiar chance to contact Penny the way I regret losing Katherine, or Nik, or Ferro, or Regan, or even Holly. People I didn't appreciate properly while I had them, and can't get back now.

Time is a fall, plummeting down from the past to the future, and you can't turn it back. That's what C told me. I can't keep reaching back for what's already too far away.

Can't even reach back for what's barely past, because that's too dangerous. I'm a continent away from the man who was my partner, and thank--the Marquis for that. He won't track me down here.

I flip open the book I took down from the bookcase, and try to remember why I picked it. Probably the maps. What I need to do is see if I can talk the keys to the second car in the garage out of Giovanna, and drive through some of these streets. Range further than I did with Lanthano, and get a little lost. It's useful. Maybe I'll feel less anxious and itchy, like something terrible's about to happen, when I have a good escape route mapped out.

But in all honesty, I probably won't.

#

Two hours of staring at maps and reading what few books on the shelves are in English, and I'm more fidgety than I can bear. I sort the books on the shelves by language, then category within language. And that's the only damn thing I can do in this room until the computer's working, unless I mean to start folding book pages into origami.

There's a picture before me, like a movie just started up, of a peculiar, fidgety angel trying to explain something to me--I don't remember the words, only her expression--with a menagerie of paper napkin animals laid across the table between us. Right up until my partner walks in and the explanation has to stop.

I blink twice, and it's just memory again. The past doesn't matter. It's informative, it can be predictive, but it's static. Let it be.

Should've picked up some notebooks while I was out before. I didn't think of it at the time. (I wasn't thinking about much anything, just then, or at least I was trying very hard to avoid thinking.) I shove my hands in the too-low pockets of the jacket I'm wearing, and leave the room to map out the house.

My shoes are lined up neatly by the bedroom door, so. There's that. It'll help for when I pace out the grounds outside.

The second floor's easy to do. It's all bedrooms, except for the big glassed sitting room at one end with all the potted plants. Two wings, one with a big central staircase down to the foyer and both with old narrow stairs hidden away. None of the doors are locked, though they all _have_ locks, and deadbolts that work from the inside. It's not hard to pick out which one's attached to Zabina's Role, and which one's Giovanna's. I don't go inside any of them, just look over the size and shape to start getting a sense of this place in my head.

On the first floor, there's more space and less of a cohesive layout. The newer wing of the second floor is all one solid addition, built around the same time the kitchen was upgraded to modern facilities (for 1960s values of "modern"), but there have been at least three smaller additions made at different times to the first floor, and traces of an earlier chunk of the building--nothing big, maybe a couple of rooms--being removed as well as repaired. Fires, floods, shoddy construction, angry mobs... There are all sorts of reasons to rip damaged pieces of a building off. 

Not a lot of locked doors on the ground floor, either. Zabina owns a dining room large enough to seat twenty people in roomy comfort, more than one sitting room, an office I do not dare cross the threshold of, and one locked room that I finally work out as a server room, from the cables running in and out. Probably some types of other storage, too.

When I reach Giovanna's office, she doesn't look up when I open the door. She's hunched over her keyboard, intent on the monitor of her computer, with music playing through a wire to one ear.

As there's no particular profit in being an asshole to someone I'll have to work with in the future--at least not to one who hasn't done the sort of posturing that requires an answer--I tap on the door, and wait for her to notice me. That _was_ a twitch when she saw me, and I'm not going to hold it against her. "Can I help you?" she asks immediately.

You could forget I'm a demon so that I could have a casual conversation with you.

Not on the offered list of services, that one, and it would be even worse if she tried to fake it. "Can you get me a notebook and a pencil? Or pen. Something to write on."

She starts pulling open drawers, and after the offer of a phone message memo pad, printer paper, and high-quality stationery, I realize that this is not going to work out well. I let myself be placated with a clipboard, a dozen sheets of printer paper, and a pen that probably cost more than anything I'm wearing right now that I actually acquired for myself.

There's about an hour of daylight left before I'd start tripping over roots in the garden. I spend that time going over every meter of the grounds. (No difficulty in determining the boundaries of this property, as it's marked and posted with warning signs.) The gardens aren't laid out in straight lines, but with meandering paths and trees sorted not quite naturally. If someone was trying to block sniper shots to the house, back when they planted these trees--and I'm certain every tree in this place is older than me or Giovanna--they did a good job of it. There's also a surprisingly large chunk of the garden that's only accessible (sans machete) on hands and knees; it's a whole private space ringed in winter-brown shrubs and trees with low branches, which you'd never even know existed if you weren't mapping out the space carefully. Enough space for a few people to sit on the grass, when it exists, and chat quietly without being noticed. Given summer foliage, it's not even visible from above.

I can't imagine what anyone in this place would use it for. It may just be a quirk of how the landscapers arranged the garden, because I cannot picture Zabina, or anyone who works for her, crawling through mud even in an actual emergency.

Me aside, apparently.

Jacket aside, I'm still not dressed for the cold, which descends as rapidly as the sun. I tuck the clipboard under my arm and find my way back to the house before it's too dark to make it safely. There are three separate entrances to the garden, and one of them's through a little patio section that's half arbor and half breakfast nook. The _lawn furniture_ in this place is also probably older than I am. There's nothing like a good authentic European estate, tiny though it may be by the standards of things you can call "estates", to remind me of how young I am by demonic standards.

I'm young by human standards, too, but that doesn't count. I didn't go through the wobbly demonling stage that approximates childhood, so I've always been an adult. More or less.

I slouch against the wall by the door, and try to get the dirt off my jeans. And off my knees, because the fabric's worn right through on both, where it hadn't quite hit that stage when I set out.

This whole outfit's a complete loss, aside from the jacket, and it's strange that this bothers me. I'm always going through clothes; it's been a constant in my life on the corporeal. Ripped knees and torn seams and stains and frayed cuffs and missing buttons and broken zippers, the inevitable side effects of being what I am. I would've had to replace everything I'm wearing soon anyway.

Maybe it's only that it's harder to buy clothing here, where I don't know the language and don't have a partner shoving cash in my pocket regularly.

Or maybe, now that I think about it, and wish I weren't, it's that it's one more broken link to what I'm leaving behind. People who work for Zabina do not wear authentically distressed-in-the-wearing jeans and cheap t-shirts advertising bands they've never listened to. Her servants do not go around in sneakers with the toes wearing through. They don't crawl through the cold dirt to find out where those last few square meters of the garden have gone, and they definitely don't huddle outside in the dark, getting cold and failing to come up with any way to avoid tracking dirt inside.

I switch back to the vessel that I like better anyway, and head back to my room. There are maps to memorize, layouts to draw out, books to flip through for the pretty pictures since I can't read most of them. It's fine. If people needed me for anything, they'd let me know.


	13. In Which We Lay Out The Rules

Zabina sends for me ten minutes after her car pulls in. It's nearly midnight, and I'm about ready to start pulling things apart just for something to _do_ , but Giovanna's either wide awake still--just as she was around dawn--or very good at faking it when she brings me the summons.

For an instant I'm tempted to change before heading downstairs. Everything I'm wearing is new, but hours of Calabite wear have given the outfit a lived-in appearance, even if I haven't been doing anything more vigorous than pacing around the room wishing for a job to focus on. But I'd rather be prompt. It shows willing, it gets me out of this damn room, and honestly, Zabina should get used to the fact that I can only achieve so much crisp sartorial perfection, no matter how hard she tries to impose it. Like trying to acquire a calm Habbalite. Some concepts don't mesh well with certain Bands.

I do make sure I'm wearing the jacket she bought me.

I do not _run_ down the stairs. More likely I slouch, if there's a good verb to apply to the way I'm getting from point A to point B, but what's important is that I show up promptly and not, for once, in a state of near meltdown. Good job, Leo. You have nearly achieved a minimum level of functionality in walking through a house where no one is even trying to kill you. For your next trick, get through a conversation without saying anything embarrassing.

Zabina waves me towards another chair in her office. A comfortable arm chair near the desk, as opposed to the chairs set directly opposite the desks in the rooms the Marquis chooses. The effect is less professor and student (or employer and employee), and more friend stopping by to see another friend at work. Inaccurate, but not, I think, completely accidental. No one in this company is unaware of hierarchies and posturing within them, even Guo. A Lilim with a brand new distinction, that she had to fight to acquire, knows those nuances down to the last fuzzy micron.

She starts by sliding two folders my way. "They're paper-thin," she says. "However, the paper is high quality, and should hold up to any casual investigation. Pick one to concentrate on for convincing the Symphony to believe it."

Each envelope holds a passport, driver's license, credit card, and a little more paper beside. Documentation of a theoretical existence. Two identities, and two potential Roles--though it's enough work to make the fabric of reality believe I belong on this plane of existence once, without trying to do it twice.

The first set has a picture of my current vessel. Ian Ross appears to be from the United States, which is probably the only way to explain my terrible grasp of the local languages. He's twenty-seven years old, and does not look particularly happy in his passport photo. No one ever does. If he's supposed to have any local residence or employment, it's not in the packet.

The photos used on the second set imply that my female vessel belongs to a surly teenager, though the paperwork claims she's twenty. Rachel West, a native of Canada, which I suppose I can fake well enough. (I should probably not rely on that one time when we crossed the Canadian border five times in two days. It wasn't exactly indicative of the local experience.) I tidy that set aside for sorting later, and put the appropriate cards for the male vessel into my wallet.

"Which do you prefer for the Role?" Zabina asks. Her tone suggests she was expecting a verbal response by now. 

Possibly I was supposed to thank her for the paperwork? No, this is work, not personal. Ash occasionally gives gifts, and asks favors, and there are thanks on both ends there because that's a private relationship between the two of us. The stack of identifying papers she's given me are nothing like a gift; they're a responsibility, from a representative of the Marquis to a new cog in the corporate machine.

This is a test. Everything is a test. She was kind enough--no, that's not kindness coming from a demon, _pragmatic_ enough--to warn me beforehand.

"I don't know." This is an unacceptable answer to some people I've worked for in the past, and I might as well find out now if she'll take it or not. I've never yet worked for anyone who _really_ wants honesty out of me, but there's always a first, right? "I've only had a Role once before, and the circumstances were different. While I could pick the vessel I'd like more security on, that's not necessarily what's most useful for the job." Hell, I might as well find out how safe this approach is. "What are the relevant criteria?"

"You'll spend more time in the Role vessel," Zabina says. "It's your public face. It also requires more care and tracking. When you make commitments in that one, you keep to them. Even if your Role is that of an unreliable mortal, you have to play that reliably. It's the greater investment, and so the one that requires the most protection." She pauses a moment. Sorting out thoughts as much as I am, and it's a small, brief comfort to realize this is not a prepared speech. She hasn't had to explain this before, and she doesn't, I think, entirely expect me to know it already. "Conversely, the Role has more defenses. The deeper the Role, the more it shakes the Symphony to destroy it, and the more mortal resources are available to you without risk. If you have to meet in person with potentially hostile forces--the kind of meeting you expect both parties to walk away from--you use that vessel. The other vessel, you use for emergencies. Clandestine operations. Travel that primarily uses Tethers, especially if you're crossing significant political boundaries; if you want to stop by Korea for a day," and I am sure that country has not been selected at random, "your primary vessel there is the one that the Symphony does not expect to have spent the right amount of time in travel and to have appropriate visas."

There are two folders in my hands, and I know which one I'd pick for my main identity strictly by preference. The vessel I'm wearing right now feels right, and more like _me_. (More like me than my celestial form does, and that worries me when I think about it.) The more time spent in it, the better. The safer, the better.

But the Role belongs to the company, not to me. And my Prince told me, when he gave me the vessel I'm wearing now, to keep it out of sight. I asked for inconspicuous, and that is not what matches up with a public face.

I set the folder with Rachel West's information back on the desk. "Then I'd better attach the Role to this one. Unless it's a problem that angels have identified it before."

"As there's no avoiding that," Zabina says, "you may as well attach what defenses you can to that one. You're unlikely to encounter angels often in this job."

"Are there any you know of in the city?"

"A Kyriotate of Trade," Zabina says, "who is under the impression that I serve Freedom, and provide frequent assistance to Thieves. We've had a few conversations. If they try to contact you, remain polite and noncommittal, and tell me afterward." There is an instant of hesitation that I don't think I'm supposed to notice. "If any celestial outside the company contacts you directly, the same instructions apply. Remove 'polite' as appropriate, and call me immediately if you suspect any danger."

Someone knows more about my background than I might like. I nod promptly, like a properly dutiful employee.

"If you're taking the other vessel for your Role," she says, "swap now. Your Role will be attached to this place, while your other vessel can have a separate residence if you'd like. Some apartment far enough across the city to use every three days and keep your clothes in."

"I'm really not dressed to your standards in the other vessel," I say. And that's before we get into the mud on my knees.

"I expect," Zabina says, "that when I tell you to do something, you'll do it. Afterwards, you can inform me of any objections you have, for future consideration." Which could sound condescending or pointed, but she manages to put it across as informative.

"Emergency objections aside?"

"We can review those on a case-by-case basis," Zabina says. "Your other vessel, Leo."

I shift to the other body. It is just the slightest bit satisfying to watch Zabina repress some reaction at seeing that I was not exaggerating about not being dressed to her standards.

"Raised by wolves," Zabina says, and sighs. That sounds authentic and not dramatic at all. "Give me a backstory for your Role."

"It's not already set?"

"It's paper. We'll create more as you establish the details. So tell me why Rachel West is here, now, and likely to be here for some time, despite being a Canadian."

"Vancouver," I say. "Mom had dual citizenship from Germany, but since she spent most of her life in Canada, it didn't seem to matter much. She died when I was twelve, in one of the many car accidents that are so convenient for explaining absent family members. Troubled adolescence with the usual variety of acting out behaviors, entered college anyway because Dad insisted, dropped out during my second year to take a so-called gap year because I was flunking anyway. After two stints in rehab he sent me to a friend of Mom's parents, on the principle that this way at least I couldn't fall in with the _same_ crowd of bad influences as before, and probably the on-and-off much older boyfriend he doesn't approve of wouldn't go so far as to fly over to see me again. There's been talking of trying to get me into the local university, but no one expects much to come of that. We're all a bit surprised that you're willing to do this much of a favor for the family of a casual friend, but who's looking a gift horse in the mouth?" I have to stop and think. "I don't know how the visa situation works out with this."

"I'll take care of that," Zabina says. "Do you want to take classes at the university?"

What an impossible question. I have no idea how to answer it properly. "Would that really be practical?" I ask, instead.

"Scheduling could be managed. Having you accepted can be _arranged_. You would have to achieve basic German fluency first." She studies me a moment, and far too much of what's inside my head is making its merry way across my face, no matter how hard I try to project neutral mild interest.

It's not like going back to school would be anything like my first college experience. There's no recapturing that heady mix of exploration and learning and Balseraph resonance, freedom and purpose and ambition and optimism. I wouldn't _want_ to recapture the parts involving my supervisor and the wild mood swings as she tested out new feelings on me every day. There's no going back. It would not be the same.

I have never wanted to go back to taking classes again because it was never an option, and what's the point of wanting things you can't have?

"So I should be working on my German," I say, before my life story shows up on my face. "Or do I work on my Mandarin first?"

"Mandarin and French," she says. "Then, German and Latin. Afterwards, Cantonese and Spanish or Italian--you can take your pick of those--and we'll begin on ancient Greek. Once you have reasonable fluency in all of those, the other of Spanish or Italian, Dutch, and your pick of Korean or Japanese. We can discuss subsequent language choices after that."

"Am I going to be doing anything _other_ than learning languages?" That came out a touch less subservient and accepting of instruction than is probably wise.

"Certainly," she says. "You'll have plenty of reading to do, along with whatever work you're assigned. You might also want to pick up a few hobbies to occupy your free time. I'll suggest a few if none spring to mind."

I have a brief, terrifying image of trying to do macrame. "I'll come up with something. Are there any other instructions I should know about?" Once again I'm forgetting to speak appropriately to my _supervisor_ , whose opinion of my behavior will, uncomfortable political in-fighting aside, determine how my future with this company goes. (And from there, my future entirely. I doubt I can survive another major change of employment circumstances.)

"Keep to that vessel when outside but on the property," Zabina says. "Do your work as assigned, and ask for more if you find yourself without work or entertainment. Don't break anything of mine that's difficult to replace, and only break what's trivial to replace if you have a good reason for it."

"I imagine Giovanna would be difficult to replace."

"Moderately so," Zabina says. If I'm being provocative--and I'm not sure if I am or not--she's not rising to the bait. "That card carries a high credit limit. Feel free to reach it. Tell me, or Giovanna if I'm not present, before you leave the property."

And don't take candy from strangers. She hasn't given any unreasonable instructions yet, but I'm not about to expect the first one. _Do what I tell you to do._ If we have trouble--and I expect that's inevitable--it'll come when I disagree with her on what I'm allowed to, well. Disagree about.

"Do I get to borrow the car?"

"If you ask, and bring it back safely." So maybe the card limit doesn't stretch quite to the point of getting a new car. (Or a used one.) I'm on a leash, if an invisible and politely expressed one.

It's not wise for me to find out its limits. Not yet. Lanthano has social pull in this company, even if he has no proper rank, and I suspect he'd exert some for me, but there are limits there. There are limits to _everything_ and I should not push them. "I should probably get the password for that computer in my room, too." Unless figuring out how to access it is a challenge I've already failed, in which case Zabina should resign herself to me failing most technology-based challenges where the solution doesn't involve removing select pieces of the technology in question.

"The password is the first person singular present indicative form of the verb 'to learn', in French." Zabina looks me over, up and down where I'm sitting like some kind of mud-dragged urchin in her office. "See about borrowing some clothing from Giovanna until your clothing arrives; she's nearer your size than I am. You'll find audio instruction on the computer and textbooks in your room."

I would rather people not leave things helpfully inside my room while I'm not there. But if I ask for that to change, she can say no, and then where am I? Best not to ask. "When's the first test?"

"I'll see you at breakfast," Zabina says. "You'll want to start eating regularly. The Symphony expects it of humans."

"And we wouldn't want to disappoint the Symphony," I say.

Then I see myself out of the office before I can get any mouthier than that. Be _good_ , Leo. You've had worse supervisors by far, and this one might not be too bad, if you can behave properly.

Like I've ever been good at behaving properly.


	14. In Which I Meet More In-Laws

I've never been much of one for breakfast; my first Role didn't bother because students usually don't, and then didn't bother because I spent so much of my paychecks on replacing broken items that I saved money by cutting out inessentials wherever I could. Since breakfast with Zabina is all coffee, bread, and questions on verb forms in two languages, it's not really selling me on the idea.

Giovanna shows up around noon with a stack of clothing in my size. Nothing tailored, but reasonably straightforward jeans and blouses and sweaters, a light winter coat in the right size and shoes that aren't utterly useless if something dangerous appears. She also manages to communicate, with some use of my textbooks, that she's now only allowed to speak to me in French or German, for the sake of more language immersion. Marvelous.

We do establish that she doesn't know Mandarin, which makes me feel ever so slightly better about my own linguistic incompetence. I wonder if coworkers over in China speak to each other in French when they want to cut human servants out of the loop, or if this particular language combination is only Zabina's personal preferences. There's no good way to ask.

I mean, there's no polite way to ask that of Zabina. It would take me ten minutes and repeated consultation of the dictionary to ask Giovanna, and then she'd probably just correct my grammar and avoid the question anyway.

Lunch is a tray delivered to my room (does Giovanna do all the cooking, too?) with a new phone, accessories already attached; dinner is another language quiz, and a suggestion that I take a few hours off to do what I like. The implication that she will find me something to do, like it or not, if I don't come up with enriching extracurricular activities, is enough to have me swearing that I'm not bored in the _slightest_.

So I spend an hour around midnight climbing the house, and working out what all of the possible entrances and exits are from places other than the doors. I find three trivial second-story routes, a half dozen complicated ones, and a few theoretical ones that would _become_ trivial if I applied my resonance to the place.

It's another hour of entertainment to leaf through the tourist guides for the city nearby, and consider which tourist destinations would be interesting to break into. (It's risky and unnecessary, so I won't. But I can think about it.) I'd want better shoes, and better clothing--well, I'd want to use the other vessel entirely, even if in some ways this one is better for those purposes by having less body weight but as much strength. Still, there's no discounting the value of reach when it comes to climbing, and I like the balance better in the male body.

The next time Lanthano comes to visit, maybe I can take him out to do tourist things. And then back after closing time, to do more _interesting_ tourist things, in slightly different parts of the same places we saw during the day. And thus it's only reasonable that I should check out the entrances beforehand, to make sure this would work...

It's one way of having a hobby, I suppose. I can always claim it's architectural research.

Another breakfast of verbs, another lunch in my room. My brain is filling up with French faster than Mandarin, which is the wrong way around for what's useful to the company. The patterns make sense to me in French, and in Mandarin it's not just the grammar that's all different, the lack of cognates, but a writing system that still makes no sense to me--I can memorize pieces, that only goes so far, it says nothing about sound, and even French, which hates the concept of phonetics, has some relationship between how a word's written and how it's pronounced--and I'm miserable at the tones. The whole _rhythm_ of sentences is different in Mandarin, and the more I attack French, the more that gets to me.

These languages should all be equally foreign to me. Helltongue is my native language. But just like all vessels should be artificial, and one feels more like me than the other, one language is grudgingly beginning to stick in my brain, and the other isn't. Despite the time I spent on it before. This is going to be a problem. I don't know when it'll be a problem, because I don't know what kind of deadlines I'm working on here, but Mandarin is what people will expect from me, and it doesn't sit well in my head.

It's only been a few days. Too early to worry about anything.

It's never too early to worry.

Dinner is rabbit confit and a detailed explanation, with periodic questions, of the order of adjectives in French. By the time we're done with the food and wine both, I am desperately wishing for more of the latter. One more thing I should know better than to try. I lay my fork down when Zabina does, and ask her, "Why doesn't Giovanna join us for meals?"

"It's polite to give her space of her own," Zabina says, and I am learning that when she says _polite_ what she often means is _useful for producing a desired social effect_ , which is not quite the same thing. "She'll join us periodically, but I don't imagine she'd find these discussions interesting."

I don't find language quizzes interesting as it is. I swig down the last bit of wine in my glass, and do not say _Lucky her_ out loud. Impolite. Not useful for producing a desired social effect. "At some point, I may be able to construct enough sentences in French to hold a conversation, so long as we talk exclusively about food and clothing."

"So you haven't reached the chapter on animals yet," Zabina says.

"No, but I've started on colors. I can talk about my shirt being black or red. If I start wearing gray, I'll need to read on before I can say anything about it."

"Votre chemise grise," Zabina says. "Would you prefer gray?"

I glance down at the sweater I'm wearing. It could be the twin to one Zabina bought me for the Seattle job. "Is going monochrome an option?"

"If you wish to project the image of a disaffected Canadian teenager slouching about in a state of mild depression, certainly."

"It would fit the Role," I say, and wish for another glass of wine. Or a decent beer. As far as I can tell, she just doesn't drink beer. What sort of person lives in Germany and doesn't drink beer? The same sort of person who lives in Germany and tells me to learn French first. I'm running out of things to say that are useful for producing a desired social effect.

There's nothing wrong with what I've been asked to do. She hasn't been fucking with my head or my emotions or my possessions or my body. I've been given a reasonable task and the tools to accomplish it. This should be fine. This _is_ fine. The only problem here is me.

"I have a meeting back home at midnight," Zabina says. Which must mean Stygia, since we're already here, where I would have thought she'd call home. "If you'd like to come along, I can introduce you to more coworkers."

And that's not a command. That's an offer. "Yes," I say. "Please." Or maybe _thank you_ would be more appropriate. Maybe there'll be someone I recognize there, who will speak to me in a language I know. If Zabina starts teaching me French in French, I'm going to--well. Cope. I just won't be happy about it.

"You may as well finish up any entertainment plans you had before eleven," she says, and pushes her chair back. "Trips back home count as work."

I wonder if I should be filling out a timesheet.

#

A demon's Heart is peculiar and precious thing. Intensely personal, because no one else can even touch it without it protesting. It's the direct connection between our souls and our Prince, where he can meddle with us at his leisure. When I close my eyes and listen to the whisper of the dissonance condition of Theft, it's my Heart speaking it to me. The one point in Hell that I can climb to from anywhere on the corporeal plane, and the chain binding me to the Prince who owns me.

Usually I stare at my Heart because of waking up from Trauma. When my presence on the corporeal has been broken and a vessel ripped off me through physical death, my Heart's what keeps me from falling into Limbo. And so much as it's supposed to be something precious to me, I can't love my own Heart. Every time I see it, something has gone horribly wrong.

Like waking up in Gehenna, having been transferred to another Word, sold off to another Prince (and for no great sum), while I was in Trauma and not entirely alive.

What I'm trying to say is that seeing my Heart in that room where Lanthano keeps his--and Zabina hers, along with all the other Heartbound employees of the company--fills me with more mixed feelings than may be appropriate. The past may be all in the past, but there's no escaping the impressions it leaves.

Still. It's a much nicer room than the labyrinth where my Heart was before. (Right near my partner's, where he could find me.) Someone's taken the time to decorate this one, which I appreciate more now that I'm not just following Lanthano through a strange place.

This isn't home, but what is? I can pretend it is until I believe it.

Zabina looks me up and down, critical and thoughtful. She's seen this outfit before; perhaps she didn't realize I hadn't changed since then. "I didn't think to have your measurements taken here," she says. "Did Lanthano get to that?"

"Not that I noticed." My hands are already in the pockets of this jacket--the only piece of clothing I've ever known that's guaranteed not to wear through--and I try not to hunch. (Stand up straight, Leo.) "Am I that far below standards?"

"Not the company's," Zabina says, which is actually somewhat reassuring. This office full of Impudites will judge me a little for what I'm wearing, but she's more concerned about what I imply about _her_ fashion choices than my own. Or what my clothing implies about her ability to direct me properly. So other people in here may read it the same way? Yes, likely. There may be occasional advantages to having a direct supervisor who feels what I do--and what I look like--reflects on her.

Where Lanthano tends to stroll through the halls here, Zabina strides. A brisk clip that's easy to fall into, half a step behind her and to the left. (I've been here before. That was different.) We pass a variety of human souls on the way to her office, and one Shedite I don't recognize who gets a nod from Zabina and no introduction otherwise.

It's not Guo, though. Too large, and too confident. (Too disinclined to stop and say hello.) Even in Stygia I think I could spot Guo from the way he moves, despite the profound difference between the human hosts he wears below and the tangled mess that makes up any Shedite's true body. And what it makes it more true, anyway? It's the eternal soul, but that just makes it more permanent, not more real. We don't cut a human open and say their true body is their ribcage, just because the cells there aren't replaced as quickly as the cells of their skin.

Something to think about another time.

Our first stop is Zabina's office, where she talks paperwork and preparations with the damned soul who's secretary to her here--if one must be a damned human, there are much worse places to spend an afterlife than this office--while I go take a look at the books on her shelves. Most of these are in Helltongue, and some in downright archaic forms of it. I begin to get the uncomfortable feeling that there's a whole set of classics existing within Hell alone that I know nothing about.

By demonic standards, I received an excellent early education. But demonic standards assume a Darwinian--no, more of a Hobbesian tooth-and-claw struggle among demonlings to find a place for themselves in the world, and then justify and defend their presence in it until they've grown up enough to start imposing some hostile environmental conditions on their juniors. Having someone pluck you out of the crowd and teach you reading, multiplication, basic physics, and how to fill out paperwork properly puts you in the top ten percent among brand new demons already, most of which will be reduced to component Forces well before they get big enough to acquire a Band. I started at nine Forces, like a Lilim--no coincidence, that--and was fast-tracked to corporeal work.

Maybe over in Fate they teach the classics of Helltongue literature, which I know nothing about. Studying up on that would likely please Zabina, and be less depressing than extended contemplation of Hell's infant mortality statistics. Or whatever you call the equivalent among demonlings, who are generally classified as a sort of vindictive, cunning animal until they're old enough to--

\--well, old enough to do what? What _could_ you do with the little ones, if you bothered to put the resources into it? Maybe nothing more than you could do with a dog, but there are plenty of those trained to decent manners down on the corporeal. If nothing else, Technology's sure to have tested that kind of thing. Once in a while I can almost see the appeal of the Game, if only for the sense that they might impose a little order on the way small creatures in Hell seep up out of the cracks and then get immediately to work chewing each other's faces and Forces off.

Except that the Game doesn't actually improve matters. They shift the disassembly and pain to more official channels, is all. No one in Hell is particularly interested in improving matters on a grand scale, except for various Habbalah would probably do it via, again, disassembly and pain. Sometimes it's a wonder that we get any damn work done at all.

Then you hit an organization like this, and it starts making sense again. Demons are great at putting together enormous waves of cannon fodder, lousy at wide-scale support and organization. But in these little groups here and there, someone with enough management skills can direct the self-interest of a few dozen demons towards a single point. And Princes can _make_ everyone beneath them coordinate in a vague manner, or hand out specific tasks, or just delegate some of the work to these groups that have somehow built a coherent organizational structure within Hell.

Regan would tell me that I think Hell is disorganized because I come from a disorganized Word, or work for one now. But having seen the War from the inside, it's a lot like the Game; much more show of organization, but enough internal tangle that about the same amount gets done with the same amount of focus as anything Factions or Theft or the ever-paranoid Secrets manages.

Maybe Lust is the one with all the streamlined internal efficiency, and we just don't _know_ because they use it all to have a good time, with some token effort given to the War now and again so that no one else catches on. Wouldn't that be interesting?

Zabina sends her secretary--I should get the soul's name--scurrying away with an armful of folders, and turns back to me. That's enough warning that I can look polite and attentive by the time she's watching for my reaction. 

"Borrow anything you like from that shelf," she says. "None of it can travel to the corporeal, but you can keep it in your office."

So I do have one. Probably not the best time to ask where it is, and if I'll have to start speaking Mandarin to convince the door to open. "How long until the meeting?"

"Ten minutes." She checks her watch, a frown flickering in and out of existence. "You may as well find a book to occupy yourself with, as the first half of that is private business. There's an employee lounge directly down the hall where you can wait."

I'd rather wait _here_ , where I don't have to introduce myself to coworkers I've never met. But if that wasn't quite an order, it was near enough that I don't want to push. I may as well save my objections for the inevitable moment when I'm told to do something I truly don't want to.

I grab a book at random, and fall into line behind Zabina again.

Her meeting is through the door Lanthano pointed out to me as belonging to the company's single Captain; directly across the hall is the room where I'm deposited, a sprawl of sofas and chairs at one end, table and kitchenette on the other. A demonling--the one I've met before, I don't remember her name--is huddled on a couch next to a damned soul, playing a game on the television over there. Something involving a lot of shooting at each other.

They don't so much as look at me when I sit down in one of the armchairs. That's not even personal--that they're sure I'm well-behaved, as an employee--but locational. They both feel so entirely confident of their safety in this room that they didn't look to see who came in.

Hell doesn't work this way. Six-Force demonlings with jobs and employers who want to keep them whole watch me when I walk into the places they work, and cringe if I look at them too directly. There's _always_ danger in Hell, and if you're so far inside your master's place of power that you're not afraid of strangers getting in, then it's time to start watching your coworkers for danger.

Office politics in this group are like nothing I've experienced, and I am guaranteed to misstep the first time I try to dabble in them. Office politics being what they are, trying to stay out of them will also be taken as a political statement.

For the moment, I ignore the game-players right back (I didn't even _know_ VapuTech had come out with Hell's answer to the X-Box) and settle down with my chosen book. Which turns out to be a philosophical treatise, worked entirely in the form of conversations between an interrogator and a series of...victims? Suspects? They don't sound like a Gamester, though maybe the Game's approach was different centuries ago. It comes across as more the product of Fate. Slow, relentless questions designed to make the people being questioned admit to the ultimate futility of whatever belief they held before.

Dry work, and without any of the jokes that even Socrates got in. I don't think I'll finish reading this one.

A Shedite rolls into the room, grabs a canned drink from the fridge--no barista in this lounge--and rolls back out again without saying hello. I don't know the social conventions of this group. (Hell, I don't know the social conventions of Stygia.) Maybe no one speaks to people they haven't been introduced to, in here. If I hadn't been deposited here so pointedly, I'd go chat with C, who is terrifying but...interesting. She says terrible things, but it always seems so well-meant, and not in the horrifying manner some Habbalah have. She understands how the universe works, and explains it as best she can to children who don't.

If I were on the corporeal, and on the right continent, I'd text Ash. Not on either. There's probably an easy way to contact Lanthano, but I don't know that, and--I need to figure these things out. And which I'm allowed to do.

The danger of asking if I can do something is that once I've been told no, there's no plausible deniability left.

The demonling leaves, damned soul trailing along behind her, and she's chattering madly about system specs and the next generation of VapuTech game consoles while the soul makes interested noises in the right spots. She flips a little wave to me on the way past--I need to work out what her name was--and I nod right back.

Simple enough. I'd like to think that if there were any major social hazards available here, Zabina would have warned me, but it's entirely possible she believes in learning through immersion.

I'm not so confident as that demonling yet, and I look up when new people enter the room. This time it's an Impudite, who is...wandering. They're wearing a knee-length skirt and a coat that reaches nearly as far, and their gray eyes are luminous when turned on me. Valentin, who Lanthano didn't want me speaking with, not that he explained _why_ I shouldn't talk with them. I was in no state to ask follow-up questions at the time.

"Hello," Valentin says, and meanders towards me--I would wonder if they were drunk, if not for those eyes--to sit on the arm of the chair I'm in. "Why are you here?"

Now there's a loaded question. I choose to take its meaning as the most inoffensive one possible. "Zabina's in a meeting."

"She'll be a while." They lean in over me, wings stretching out for balance. "You could go see the sights of Stygia, but then the wrong people might catch up with you. Does it bother you?"

"You'll have to narrow that down a little," I say lightly. I will not devolve into paranoia now. And of course everyone here knows my background. Of course.

"Being locked up in little boxes," they say. "Put on a leash, when your Heart tells you to keep moving. You need five meters of space, and they put you on a six-meter line, so that's fine, isn't it?" The Impudite taps one finger in the center of my forehead. "Good enough. You'll learn to live with it. Do you ever just want to _scream_?"

"I can't say that it's come up much," I say, and that's probably a lie. (Penny would know.) "Was there somewhere you were going with this conversation?"

"Not really," Valentin says. Their smile is sweet and confidential. "I'm meeting new people. Making friends. That's the sort of thing we do. You should relax more, Leo. No one in here will hurt you. Chaixin wouldn't allow it. You're in the safest place in the world."

"Well, now I feel reassured."

"Now you're being sarcastic," Valentin says. They cross their legs, a foot nearly landing in my lap; the Impudite wears white boots with solid heels, sturdy enough that I'd be happy to stomp through Stygia in them and so shiny they can't have walked through so much as a dusty room in these. "Let me try. 'You must spend a lot of time talking with C.' Or, mm, something about over familiarity? I'm out of practice. The damned are nice enough in their own way, but there's not much to practice on, is there? You start talking to them, and they..." Valentin makes a rolling gesture with their fingers across a palm. "Pretty little toys in their own way, though, and some of them say very clever things."

"I wouldn't know," I say. Not quite a lie. I don't deal with the damned often, and I don't have a mind-bending resonance. (Mind-breaking, perhaps, but only the ethereal plane.)

Valentin tilts their head to one side. Hair, all fluffy soft handfuls of it that I thought were gelled upright, slides over one of their eyes. "Do you think," they ask, "that if you don't give me much to work on, I'll go away? What did people tell you about me? I should say, 'Oh, they spread such terrible lies about me,' but they don't. They all say the most amazingly polite things."

"People tell me remarkably little," I say. "Maybe I should ask for an org chart with annotations."

Valentin sits up, giving me a few inches more of breathing space, though at this point I'm worried by how amused they look. "Wouldn't that be handy? What you need to know about everyone, in one line. Captain Dio's entry would say 'Jolly and political', and mine would say 'We worry but it's not polite to say that to their face,' and Adrian's would have the previous bit scratched and now just say 'That asshole', and Yuliang's would say 'The favorite', and Zabina's would say 'Well, we _think_ she's loyal enough', and--oh, you haven't met everyone yet, have you? What do you think your entry would say?"

The superfluous Calabite. Prone to sudden breakdowns. Not very useful, but trainable. "It would depend on who was writing the annotations."

"You're very good at avoiding questions," Valentin says. "How long do you think that'll keep working for you?"

"It would depend on who was asking the questions."

The Impudite bursts into laughter. Startles me so much I almost flinch, and their voice is so...sweet. I could see someone falling in love with them for their face, their voice, the way they move. Not so much for what they say. "I'm glad we're keeping you," they say. "You should come by my room when you're here. I could tell you such interesting things, if you wanted to listen. Oh! That look. You were about to say something about C, and then you remembered that I already gave you that line. Do you still want it?"

"No, no," I say, and put on a smile that's not as casual as I'd like. "Finders, keepers. Theft motto and all that."

"But I found you here all alone," Valentin says. "How does that work?"

"I'm pretty sure there's paperwork to fill out," I say, "and so far Zabina gives me the impression that she knows from paperwork. She'd probably win on that one."

There's a new Impudite standing in the doorway, sharp-eyed and breathless. "Valentin," she says. Pointed, and with no more explanation.

"I'm being very polite," Valentin says, and drags their knuckles across my cheek. "Just tell her, Leo, how polite I'm being."

"Valentin was just explaining to me," I say, "the rules for ownership of property within the office."

"I'll bet they were," says the newer Impudite. "You must be Leo. I'm Erzebet. _They_ are Valentin, as you've already gathered, and not supposed to harass employees."

"If he felt harassed," Valentin says, a booted foot tapping me on the knee, "surely he would have said so. Do you feel harassed, Leo?"

"I can't say the conversation is doing much for my reading concentration," I say, and wonder in a carefully distant way what would happen if I made Valentin...annoyed.

"Stop by," Valentin says. They get to their feet by sliding down across my lap and up, the sole of a boot braced against my ankle as they finish the move. "Whenever you'd like, as I'm always about."

A human soul taps on the doorframe, casts an apologetic look towards the second Impudite--Erzebet--really, the doorway is getting crowded at this point. "Zabina said that you should come by now," he says, ducking to say this below Erzebet's arm.

"Tell her that I said hello," Valentin says. And stands there, staring at me with a charming smile on display, until I flee at a brisk walk.

Erzebet mouths something that looks like _Sorry_ at me as I pass. I don't know how to take that at all.

#

Captain Dio does not have a desk in the manner of more human-shaped demons. He has a tilted bowl of a chair set between various slanted surfaces, with papers and keyboards and tablets resting on them, and comfortable furniture for Impudites and Shedites both--and thus, by extension, this Calabite--arranged in a loose circle around. It comes across less as the office of a demon with two distinctions and a fair amount of organizational power, and more like the setup for a high-priced group therapy session.

"So you're the newest hire," he says, and Valentin was _right_ , because "jolly" is the best possible word to describe his voice, and the pat I get on the shoulder with some oozing part of him. (It looks like intestines, which would be one of the more normal things for a Shedite to have inside him.) "A pleasure to finally meet you! Most new employees have a rough transition period when they start, but you're in good hands. I have every confidence that you'll do us all proud once you've picked up the basics. How's that going so far?"

Zabina has found herself a chair to sit in gracefully, leafing through some set of notes and pretending to pay no attention to our conversation. If this is a test for her, it's one she would rather everyone believe she's not worried about. "I've barely started," I say, "and there are...a lot of languages to get through."

"You'll do your best," says Dio. "What more could anyone ask?"

I have fallen into the Marches without realizing it. That's the only way I can explain this place. This is some peculiar Domain created to fuck with my head by giving me a series of demons who don't act like demons ever do.

I have met all sorts of Shedim. Depressed and nervous and creepy and hyper and smug and panicked and aggressive and whiny and clingy. _Jolly_ is not on the list. Shedim do not pat you on the shoulder and say something heartening about doing your best. It's like meeting--a Balseraph without self-confidence. An emotional Djinn.

"In any case," says this Shedite, who I realize is covering up for my awkward and stunned silence, "I should tell you more about what I do! Since we probably won't run into each other much, it wouldn't come up otherwise. I handle all the political work for the company that doesn't require the direct intervention of the Marquis. Back alley dealings, parties, information swaps, figuring out who's about to make a move on territory and how we can use that for our advantage... It's all great fun, if you have the temperament for it, which most people don't. That's why _I'm_ here, to let the rest of you get on with your sort of work, which isn't to my taste." A number of bloodshot eyeballs focus on me, looking a touch...anxious? "Do you have any questions?"

Yes, but most of them start with _what_ and continue with _the fuck_ , which would not impress Zabina to express. I come up with a half-hearted, "What are Stygian politics like?"

"Delicate," Dio says promptly. Maybe he's as relieved as I am to have somewhere to go with this conversation. "Very delicate! All Stygian politics are very delicate, except for the parts which require a tire iron to the kneecap."

"Delicately applied?"

"It helps to find the _correct_ kneecaps," Dio says, "though in my experience the tire iron aspect is quite flexible. Rebar, golf club, anything along those lines. Or a brick, if you deploy it properly, but at that point someone probably needs to help by holding down your target, unless you have excellent aim."

"And then it goes back to delicacy."

"Exquisite delicacy," Dio says. "You get the picture!" I get another goopy pat on the shoulder. "Nothing you have to worry about. Now, our dear Knight here has already set up your corporeal details, and there's a room with your name on it--not literally, we all decided against little brass nameplates long ago, but in the ownership sense--here in the office, and someone will stop by eventually to talk to you about budgeting and expense accounts and salaries. I'm told that there are some lingering issues with inconvenient people from your past, who might choose to cause an awkward scene if they find you alone, so it looks like you're not supposed to wander Stygia on your own _quite_ yet. Purely a temporary measure. You should take care on the corporeal, but that's always the case. Dangerous things down there, and some of them show _no_ sense of discretion or moderation in dealing with people who come from slightly different philosophical frameworks."

"I've run into a few of those," I say, because right now angels are the safest thing to think about. "We've had our disagreements, and those usually ended poorly for someone." Except for when I was arguing over where my life was going with a particular Seraph. I don't know. Maybe that did end poorly for him, from his perspective.

"We'll just try to keep those encounters to a minimum," Captain Dio says. "Best for everyone, mm?" Something tentacle like curls over my shoulders in a friendly manner. "Welcome to the company, and try to enjoy it. Rough at the start, yes, there's no avoiding that, but then it just gets better and better. It's good to have you with us."

"Thank you," I say, for lack of better response. "Sir."

"Drop me a note later on if you want to try any of those parties," he says. "Factions throws the most interesting ones, and no one else ever wants to come along." Another pat, and he turns me back towards Zabina, who's already standing. "I know you're busy, Zabina, but don't be a stranger. And _do_ keep me informed of any unusual details that catch your notice. There's no knowing what will be important."

That sounds like a condescending statement of the obvious, to me, but his tone is amiable and Zabina takes the instruction with a nod. Maybe she never looks ruffled when speaking to people of higher rank; the only times I've seen her clearly angry was when she was dealing with Yuliang.

Yuliang, who I'd be happy to spend more time with, and mean to be careful of. Politics. I stayed out of them in Fire, and look where that got me. Left them to Regan in the War, and did that work out so well? Never paid attention to them in Theft, which meant letting my partner handle everything, and oh, that was not headed anywhere good, now, was it? Let's be honest: he has enough protection that the Marquis could never kill him, and I gather she wanted to. All she could do was take me away.

I wonder if he's replaced me yet.

I hope he has.

That's a damn lie, for about five different reasons, none of which are useful to dwell on.

We stop back in Zabina's office for more paper-shuffling, and I return the book to its place on the shelf before she can suggest I keep it in that room I've been assigned and haven't seen yet.

She closes a drawer with an air of finality, and lets out a small breath. Barely audible, even with only the two of us in this room. "Erzebet says you met Valentin."

I wonder how. Maybe everyone else is constantly texting each other even here--I've never heard anything good about wireless service in Hell, but this is exactly the sort of place that would put together a closed setup for internal use only--and I need to catch up with that. "Briefly," I say, and try to figure out what the appropriate follow-up question is.

"They should be safe enough," Zabina says, which answers one of the possibilities. "Physically speaking. I wouldn't recommend them as a first choice for making new friends."

The first time I met Lanthano, before I knew who he was, Zhune saw us talking and said, "And now you're making new friends." Which has nothing to do with what Zabina is saying here. It's an unfortunate confluence in vocabulary, which you have to expect with common words like that.

"Wasn't planning on it," I say.

"Maybe in another decade," Zabina says, which tells me exactly why this company is keeping Valentin around, and a great deal about why people are so very...polite.

The Marquis must have a remarkable tolerance for broken things which might yet be repaired. I might survive here after all.


	15. An Interlude, In Which Time Passes

Zabina was not surprised that the first time her student gave her real argument, it was over clothes. An argument had to occur; children who were afraid of even testing the boundaries around them wouldn't learn quickly or completely.

Besides, she found it interesting. Not a reaction she felt her student would appreciate, and so she kept that quite to herself, but how a person argued told her so much about them. Leo argued nothing like most Calabim of her acquaintance, who preferred direct confrontation and aggression over being on the defensive. He argued like--a Shedite, that was her best comparison. Slippery and fast, changing the grounds of debate if she gave him a hairsbreadth of space to twist it in another direction. He haggled like a fishwife, if one who was expecting a sudden doom to stop the argument at any moment.

After ten minutes of argument, she was sure he expected an autocratic decision to appear at any moment, and wondered why he would argue anyway. (Much as she appreciated the learning experience, it didn't seem useful to him, from that perspective.) Fifteen minutes of argument, and she realized that he expected punishment--physical or otherwise--for not accepting her first decision.

Testing boundaries, then. Learning what the punishment was for disagreement, so that he could judge later on what was worth that cost.

She offered him a small compromise on the matter of clothing choices when not acting among mortals in an official capacity, and assigned research on local fashion--and the nuances thereof--as something not entirely unlike punishment. If he wanted to argue with her about _that_ , he needed to be prepared with more detail and not merely all-purpose argument techniques.

His report the next morning was full of sarcastic commentary, but at least he was clearly doing the work assigned.

#

Theft still didn't sit easily inside her. After seven centuries of that Balseraph whisper, _take and keep_ , the jittering edged refrain of this Word, _run and dodge_ , pinched her soul like new shoes. Coming up on a century, and _still_ it didn't fit.

But other people felt it differently. Her student had spent nearly half of his very short life in Theft, and so he had none of the native habits, but all the fidgety reactions to being held in one place for too long.

She took him down to the city, with the excuse of practicing the new Role in public, and led him through four galleries until he let on that he admired something; that painting she bought, for hanging in his room. It was not what she would have chosen. That was part of the lesson.

The next day, she had two sets of exceedingly practical clothing delivered to his room. No surprise--she would have wondered at her misstep, had it gone differently--that he appeared in those at dinner. In his second vessel, to match the size of the clothing she'd sent upstairs.

"You may as well go out at night," she said. "Spend some time in the city. Text me every half hour, when you're off the grounds, until I tell you otherwise."

"What should I do in the city, not knowing the language?" he asked.

"You're a clever demon," she said. "I'm sure you'll come up with something." She took a sip of wine, and debated how much of the obvious she wanted to state. Perhaps a little. "So long as it's nothing that will have me receiving awkward calls in the middle of the night."

"I won't get caught," he said, with more confidence in his voice than his body language was willing to back up.

"I expect not," she said. "You've made it this far."

That, she had only meant as a closing statement of reassurance. But he gave her one of those crooked smiles that said she had laid a hand across healing wounds by accident again. "I've been caught plenty of times," he said. "There were just other people to get me out. But you shouldn't worry; I have a much better track record when I'm just amusing myself."

#

Two nights later, he appeared in her office just as she was beginning to worry about not having received a text in time. Quietly smug, as well he should be, for having slipped the security all the way in.

"Will I have to replace anything?" she asked.

"You said not to break anything without good reason," he said. "And while 'I wanted to see if I could do it' is a reason, it's not a good enough one to break anything here."

"It would appear you can," she said. "Do you have suggestions for improving the security here?"

"Plenty," he said, "but none that a Calabite or Kyriotate couldn't get past. Electronics is more a hobby than a profession on my part."

"Maybe we should do something about that," she said. "Are you enjoying yourself, out and about?"

"The view is excellent," he said. "I thought of picking up something for you while I was out, but I couldn't find anything I was sure would suit your taste. Except this one set of decorations that--well, I _could_ find a way to transport a few hundred kilograms of stone up here, but you couldn't display them to full effect anywhere inconspicuous."

"No proof of larceny is required," Zabina said, "though you may as well bring home anything you like."

"Why would I want to break something I liked?" he asked, a joke that wasn't a joke, and found an excuse to run back to his room for work on language study.

#

A Thief from outside the company, someone friendly and willing to take on a little debt now and pay it back later, stopped by for two days of recovery from some tangle she wouldn't describe. Giovanna and Leo did hasty shuffling of furniture, and nothing expensive was bled on.

Leo all but hid from the Balseraph until she left again. A data point that Zabina couldn't set against enough others to form a line. There were too many factors, too much chance of jumping from correlation to causation...

She called her student into her office for three hours of focused language work, and discovered nothing about why he would avoid Wordmates, but a great deal about his opinions on the textbooks she'd given him. The one aimed at teaching him Mandarin was focusing on the spoken language, and hadn't begun to discuss radicals in the written; that was a conversation itself.

The vocabulary issue was another one. A demon who viewed food mostly as a matter of Role maintenance, and clothing as an even more annoying version of the same, found nothing of interest in a language progression that gave him the words to order dinner and buy a pair of socks. She might have bent more on that one, if it weren't a stand-in for other issues he was unwilling--or unable--to express and ask for help on. Therefore, she held firm. Textbooks chose their progressions for reasons, and when he knew languages well enough to teach them, he could come up with his own vocabulary list for students.

He sulked off after that. Adolescent, like so many humans she'd known. With a demon, she didn't know when he'd grow out of it. (Some humans, especially the wealthy ones and the stupid ones, never did. The second wasn't a problem here.) At least he was willing to put in the work. Really, half the trouble was that he picked up the basics too fast, skipped ahead to forming false patterns that messy human languages broke, and snapped at the language as if it meant to spite him when those patterns proved inaccurate.

She found him a physics textbook in one language, an architectural history in the other, and sent both upstairs.

And then she had to brush up on physics formulas herself, so that she could quiz him on both over breakfast.

#

"She's picked up enough German to be rude with it," Giovanna said, curled up at Zabina's side on the bed. The TV played in front of them, silent newscasters mouthing the words faster than the captioning kept up.

Zabina did not correct the pronoun choice. "To you?"

"To being required to speak French if she wants to talk to me about anything. That was about the gist of it. Only the cursing was in German." Giovanna smoothed the crocheted coverlet--a gift from some female relative of hers, Zabina would have had to check her notes to recall which--over her knees. Avoidant behavior. Not unprecedented when the girl had to discuss other demons, not standard either. "She's going to stay a long time, isn't she."

"Yes," Zabina said, and did not point out that she'd told Giovanna of this before Leo entered the house the first time.

"And she'll always be...small and pretty and dainty. Or get a little older, for the Role, until it's boring and she resets it to be pretty again."

"Likely," Zabina said.

Giovanna laid a hand beside hers. Nails painted in the same color, today.

"There are people who would offer you eternal youth," Zabina said, "if you would rather work for them."

"There'd be a price." Giovanna looked up at her at last, with a quick, sharp smile. "The first thing you taught me. There's always a price. No, I'll stay with you as long as you'll have me. I haven't changed my mind about _that_. Though I'd rather not be sent off with some boy you've picked out as having the right sort of chin and pretty eyes. Set up my brother, instead. He'd appreciate it."

"He's not as clever as you are," Zabina said.

"No, but intelligence regresses towards the mean, doesn't it? I wouldn't mind being an aunt. Or even taking care of a child after that whole diapers stage, once they're old enough to speak clearly. So long as I don't have to produce it myself." Giovanna turned her hand over, palm up, and Zabina laid her own atop. "I suppose that's the one thing we can do that you can't. It doesn't seem like a fair trade."

"You could register a complaint with those who made the universe."

"Just see if I don't," Giovanna said, "if someone accidentally filed me in the right place for it, after I'm dead."

"You can also kill people without causing an inconvenient amount of disturbance," Zabina said. "Surely that's worth something."

"Maybe if it came up more often." Giovanna smiled at her, sly and sweet. "Besides, you don't need _me_ for that. You could take out a busload of nuns without a whisper of noise, if it was good for your bottom line, given your Role."

"I'll have to keep that in mind," Zabina said, "if I find a particularly lucrative bus of them at some point."

Giovanna laughed. The sound was brittle at the edges. Still. Good enough.

#

He came home one night with a broken arm, a little bloody and more bruised. "I fell," he said, by way of explanation, and did not volunteer from where, or how far, or why.

"Let me see," she said.

When she set the bone back in place, he barely winced. When she turned his arm over to look at the bruising, he pulled away so fast she was left with no one in reach. Only a Calabite standing across the room, his back to the wall, expression resolutely blank.

Zabina cursed herself, in the privacy of her own mind, for having filed some of the information Lanthano and Yuliang had passed along to her as only relevant in bed.

"I can't fix that myself," she said, as if nothing had happened. "We can ask someone from work to come over and manage that, or simply ask a favor of the next qualified person who visits."

"It's no rush," he said. "If I wear this vessel enough, it'll heal on its own. Eventually."

"No. That's too much risk to let it stay longer than a few days."

"I should've learned the Song myself," he said. "Given how often this kind of thing comes up."

"Did anyone ever offer to teach you?"

"Oh, no," he said, that crooked little smile appearing. "Never."

#

Shortly after breakfast the next morning, she realized that she had made a mistake. Not a serious one; one that could _become_ serious, quite possibly nearly had done so the night before, and it all came down to forgetting that she was dealing with an atypical sort of demon. Not merely a damaged one--all the demons brought into the company were--but one who had been a favored Servitor of sorts, with unusual jobs.

Someone who did not habitually avoid all contact with other celestials. And thus should have been given a briefing she had meant to deliver in a few more weeks, when he started visiting the city during the day.

Zabina called him down to her office, and asked what, exactly, he had fallen off of.

"I'm not sure whose Tether it was," he said, "though it's certainly not from our side. Surprisingly wide locus, really. If I'd have to guess, Stone or the Sword."

"Stone," Zabina said. "Did anyone see you?"

"I would have mentioned that," he said, a trace of hurt pride--or professional offense--in his voice. "I kept away from any statuary that looked likely to hold Kyrios, too. Are there any of Stone at the Tether?"

"Not that I'm aware of," she said. "Did you know it was a Tether when you set out to rob it?"

"I wasn't robbing it," he said. "And, no. I thought that if there were any Tethers in the city that I could run into accidentally, you would have told me."

She did not like that tone of voice. Even if it was some sort of positive sign that he felt comfortable enough to imply she had made a mistake. "I thought you would be more circumspect about--what were you doing with it?"

"Exploring," he said.

"Exploring."

"Getting a feel for the city. It's easier when there's no one around expecting me to speak with them." That hunch of his shoulders was less apparent in this vessel than the male one, and meant exactly the same sort of defensiveness. "Are there other Tethers in the city?"

"Fire," she said.

"Theirs or ours?"

"Ours, though I wouldn't recommend paying them a visit."

He coughed out a laugh. "Wasn't planning on it. Quiet sort of city, on that front?"

"Quiet enough. No real truce, but the War is colder here than in some places. The Game and the Sword both have some presence among the police, though I haven't figured out yet if they have Servitors, Soldiers, or merely strong contacts. Nightmares used to work here, but that Servitor disappeared a few years ago; I don't know if she's been replaced." Zabina ran through the list in her head, looking for the ones that would cause trouble if approached carelessly or in ignorance, eliding the discreet ones who never looked for further contact themselves. "There's a Balseraph of Lust, smaller than you, who's friendly enough. That Trade Kyriotate who I mentioned before. We suspect a Tether of Animals near the city, but no one's confirmed it."

"Could be worse," Leo said. He shook his head, and then shoved hair out of his face irritably. That vessel would need another haircut soon; Zabina had already decided that demanding a significant change in its hairstyle wasn't worth the argument. "Do you have pictures for any of these people?"

"So that you can avoid them?"

"That was the plan. It doesn't sound like we have any friends in the area."

Except that Lust should have counted as one. If he meant to deal as warily with that Word as Lanthano did, she'd have to keep an eye on that, for the sake of diplomacy.

But then, diplomacy _was_ the responsibility of the senior employee in the area.

"Try not to fall off the Fire Tether," she said.

"Are you going to tell me where it is?"

"No," she said. "You have plenty of research material at hand. Figure it out, and tell me how."

He needed more challenge than the languages.

#

Shri responded to the request with such alacrity that Zabina suspected the Impudite had been waiting for an excuse to stop by. "It's a chance for travel," Shri said, on her arrival, and smiled at her briefly before descending on Giovanna. "Gia! Are you still doing the cooking? And are you taking requests? Because I have _ideas_ , and I brought a few ingredients along. It's amazing what you can fit in the pockets of this coat."

The house was rather less quiet than usual, all afternoon.

And Leo sat in his room until he was called for dinner and the repair of his arm.

He was polite. No fault there. He smiled at Shri's anecdotes in the right places, asked a few questions in the dinner conversation--more than he usually had back in Seattle--and there was nothing for anyone to complain about.

When the Impudite fixed his arm, he thanked her nicely, offered to repay her for the Essence used, and left "to work on irregular verbs" as soon as possible.

Zabina had another glass of wine, and left Giovanna to handle the rest of the evening's entertainment.

"She's cute enough in the one vessel," Shri said, before taking her leave, "and I suppose she's diligent, so that's nice, I suppose? How's it going?"

Back in Greed, that would have been a question with a landmine placed gently beneath. In the company, it was no more than a mousetrap. Still best not to step on. "Better than I expected," Zabina said. "Once he's not so shaky on his manners, I'll have to send him around to meet everyone."

"He's already better with manners than Guo," Shri said. "Take some credit for _that_." She blew Zabina a kiss. "Stop by more often. Just because you're a Knight doesn't mean you have to work _all_ the time."

#

Zabina called Lanthano.

"I know you've looked at the time," he said, when he picked up the call. "And that if it were a real emergency, you would've called by Song. So what in the world compelled you to call at this time of morning?"

"Some people in your city are at work at this time of morning, Lanthano," she said.

"Yes, but those are people who aren't me." He was being airy, and he only spoke that lightly when he was covering up something else. "What's the not quite emergency?"

"I need a favor," she said.

He was silent for a moment. "Officially?" That was not airy at all.

"Off the books. I need information, and I would prefer that you not gossip about the matter throughout the company."

"Well, you know me," he said. "The soul of tact. What's he done?"

Zabina pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and reminded herself that there were far worse people in the company to ask for favors. If it was easy to forget how well that Impudite could pick up on politics and undercurrents and _trends_ in the company, because of how casually he dealt with most, well, it was her own fault for forgetting. She knew better. "What sort of favor do you want, Lanthano?"

"I want to help," he said. "Which is what you want, so we both win on this one."

"Try that again, and more convincingly."

His feet scuffed across carpet. (No one sent him on burglaries. He didn't sneak; he posed.) "Zabina, I'll give you advice if you'll take it. That's what I'm asking for."

"You want access," she said. "Have I told you not to stop by?"

"You sure haven't _invited_ ," he said. "So tell me what the problem is, and we'll fix it."

Zabina wished she were in the garden, in daylight, and not in her office at nearly midnight. "He doesn't make friends. Not with Giovanna, not with anyone from the company who stops by, not with any Wordmate from outside who does. He's not failing to get along with them; he's avoiding them. What's wrong?"

"What I would have done," Lanthano said conversationally, "is get him a flat in the city, and a car to go with it. Have him live there, and travel back to see you twice a day."

Zabina processed this, and came up with little of use. "He needs more space?"

"He needs more _people_ , Zabina. No matter what he claims, he likes humans. He needs people around him who aren't staring at him waiting for him to snap or roll over, who he can act like a human around."

"You didn't say any of this when you were here." Zabina kept her voice perfectly neutral. "Or after you left."

"I was informed that interfering overmuch with your first employee would come across as undermining your authority."

That was not Lanthano's phrasing. Nor, Zabina suspected, the phrasing in which it had been delivered to him. That was the stiff, careful expression of someone who had _wanted_ to meddle, never mind her authority, and had been dragged back from that stance.

The Marquis did not care to have the rest of the company questioning her decision of who to promote. Thus, the support. The Marquis did not care to have her newest Knight resting entirely on the work of others. Thus, the test. Everything was a test. What made that tolerable was that some people handing out tests didn't want to see the test failed.

"That doesn't fit the Role," Zabina said, well aware she'd paused long enough that Lanthano was making some of the same conclusions. "He doesn't have the languages, and more importantly, I can't guarantee his security if he's spending that much time distant. Don't tell me what you would have done; tell me what to do now."

"I'd say to get him a pet, but as mine just did something horrible on the carpet, I can't recommend that wholeheartedly," Lanthano said.

"The human type don't ruin as many carpets."

"Not unless they come home drunk, and then it's even harder to clean up after." Lanthano sighed faintly. "Never mind that. Look. You can't give him someone to take care of, which would be ideal, because that has too much chance of going wrong. Especially when you need him focused on you as the local authority figure. But it sounds like you're hitting too many of the Djinn buttons. You need to find a way to back off from those."

Now that stung. "I haven't so much as touched him."

"No, I mean--" The Impudite made a small, frustrated sound. "This would be easier to explain in person. Look. He's learning, right? Doing what you said? That's good. He wants your approval. But that's _bad_ , because he wanted that Djinn's approval, too, so you get the fallout from that. He's been gaslit so much on being allowed to make friends that he's just not going to believe you when you encourage him in that. Not until he has proof that it works. So you send him to see people he already knows, and ask them by, and then you _play nice_ with those people."

Zabina wanted another glass of wine. "I am not inviting Yuliang over."

"Then you need to send him to visit her. It can't just be me, or I'm the exception. Set a _pattern_ , Zabina. It's not that hard to figure out. Send him--I don't know, to see that Free Lilim in New York that he likes so much."

"I am not sending him to a Free Lilim. He'll come back covered in hooks."

"Well, those are the options you have available, because he doesn't have a lot of friends out there to connect with. What with burning all those bridges in the War and Fire. You could try quizzing him about some, but that's probably just going to come across as implying you don't want him to see them."

"Regardless of what I say."

"If it was simple," Lanthano said, "anyone could do it. And it wouldn't be a job they only give to a Knight."

"If you wanted the rank," Zabina said, "you should have fought for it, like everyone else who wanted it."

Lanthano was quiet for a long moment. A cat whined, barely audible through the line.

"Work with what you have," he said. "I'll do what I can on my end. But I can't do your job for you."

"Call Yuliang," Zabina said. "See if you can convince her to...ask."

"I'll see what I can do. Take care of the kid, would you?" And Lanthano was back to airy confidence. "I'd like to see him again, and it'll be more fun if you've been doing a good job on your end."

"I always do a good job," Zabina said, and hung up. It was not her best closing line. But it was true.


	16. In Which My Coworker's Obsession With Clothing Continues

We reach Shanghai around eleven at night. Yuliang's across the room before my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. "This," she says, "is why I keep this apartment, even though I'm hardly _ever_ here."

With a properly Impudite flair for the dramatic, she sweeps apart the heavy curtains on the windows that look to make up most of this wall. There's a balcony beyond, but never mind that. We can see half the city from here, and the view is spectacular. Lights upon lights in the middle of the night, steady or flickering or rippling and reflected back from the overcast sky.

"Zee called this place 'Paris of the East', once," Yuliang says, "which only goes to show where she comes from. No one calls Paris 'Shanghai of the West', because they'd be laughed off if they tried. It doesn't have a patch on this."

"Wouldn't know," I say, and shove my hands in my pockets. "I've never been to Paris."

"It's bound to happen, given who you're living with," Yuliang says. She spins on one heel, glittering in the light herself. She's already dressed for the club; I'm dressed for climbing German architecture at two in the morning. "This place is such a _mess_ , but you can't beat the view. Besides, it cuts down on the chances of anyone hearing the disturbance, when I leave and arrive here. You'd be surprised at how many people forget that _vertical_ distance counts too. But I bet you don't forget."

"I don't." Vertical distance doesn't come up much in calculating disturbance--I'm seldom in buildings tall enough for that to matter--but when I ask myself about this question, I find that, yes, my instincts were already taking that into account. Good. I'm not much of an architect these days, haven't been much of one in a decade and change, but if I lose my sense of _space_ then I'll start to worry. "Were we planning on making a lot more disturbance up here?"

"Of one sort or another," Yuliang says. Her smile's infectious, and I'm smiling back, a lunar reflection of her solar expression. "Come here and _look_ , Lee."

So I pick my way across the floor with some care, because the place is exactly what she called it, a mess. There's furniture somewhere under these heaps of clothing, magazines, purses, boxes, god knows what's in those, but I wouldn't try to sit down and read a book in here without cleaning first. Even in my messier and more stationary days, I knew to keep the couch cleared.

The second-favorite Impudite of my acquaintance loops her arm into mine when I reach her, so that we're standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the windows. Even as a cramped apartment--unless the bathroom hides some amazing depths, it can't be more than four hundred square feet--this place must cost a fortune. Windows like this, a view like this. A residence for a young professional with no family to support and more money than accumulated possessions.

"Over past that skyscraper, only a few kilometers beyond," Yuliang says, pointing across the skyline, "there used to be this safehouse that Daosheng and Chaixin owned. It burnt down about a hundred and sixty years ago. Some sort of turf war, I don't remember the details." She moves her finger fractionally. " _That's_ where we took Lanthano to learn to play fan-tan, when he'd been with us about as long as you have now. That building's gone too, but you can still gamble in the building that replaced it, so it lives on in spirit, right?" She nudges me to turn and follow where she points next. "That building? With the green lights--you see it. Daosheng had an office in there. She'd swap the names around for who owned it every year or two. Not much of an office, the wiring was terrible, but another great view. You can see the lights of this building from the window of that office."

Her arm tightens around mine. As if I might slip free otherwise.

" _Any_ way," Yuliang says. "It's a great city. We'll have so much fun while you're here! But you should know, and people like Zee aren't about to tell you, that this is where the company started. Europe is nice, but living there is like visiting Shal-Mari. It's not the same as being home."

Stygia and Shanghai and Seattle are all about equally home, to me. Which is to say, not at all. Shanghai has the advantage of no unpleasant memories attached to it, and the disadvantage of being dominated by a language--or languages--I don't speak. I guess it evens out.

"It's not like I know Europe all that well either," I say, mostly to please Yuliang.

"Wait another twenty years, and maybe we'll get a division for North America," Yuliang says. "Then you can come work for _me_." And, leaving that as some sort of settled matter, when I'm sure it's nothing of the sort--she reminds me of Regan at times--she spins around and steps back, to look me up and down again. "I like what you're wearing! It's a bit _functional_ , but that can be good. Zee actually lets you wear that?"

"In my time off," I say, and find I don't much want to go over some of the arguments that led up to this compromise. "Why, is it going to have people spitting on me in the streets here?"

"No, but it could be..." She makes a little gesture with both hands. "More exciting! It's no problem. We'll go shopping. I'll get you more interesting clothes. Maybe start with a brighter shirt and something to jazz that up, and then tomorrow when everything's open, a proper outfit."

"Yuliang, it's great to see you again, but I don't want to spend this whole weekend trying on clothes."

"Don't worry." She laces her hands behind my head, and pulls me down into a kiss that is neither quick nor innocent. "It won't all be clothes going _on_."


	17. In Which Yuliang Has Many Friends

Questions of morning person and night person are rather beside the point when dealing with us demons, who don't sleep. (Trips to the Marches aside.) And back in Seattle, there was a sort of work schedule that had everyone settling down to work at about the same time in the morning.

Even so, I'm a little surprised that Yuliang has this much perky to deploy at breakfast--which we're having in the apartment of a friend of a friend, because that's how Yuliang finds breakfast locations, and I bet she won't help with the dishes, either--and more surprised that she's convinced at least three other people to show up to share in it.

Four, if you count the man who actually owns the apartment.

Guo's all gangly eagerness. He's developed some confidence since I last met him, and wears a host who suits that. Some boy in late adolescent, with muscles he doesn't know how to handle yet and a determination to prove himself as a bruiser. (I hope Guo's picked up another Corporeal Force since Seattle, if anyone expects him to back up that appearance.) Aside from declaring himself wildly pleased to see me, he's been quiet over breakfast, leaning in with his elbows on the table and listening to the rest of the conversation.

Most of which is between Yuliang and another Impudite: Baolan, which is not her Role name, but I'd rather remember the omni-purpose name than mortal-compatible one. As the only language that's common to all of us and not the owner of the apartment is Helltongue, that's the language of choice at the table.

"Isn't it sort of rude," Guo ventures, during a lull in conversation, "for us all to speak a language someone here doesn't understand?"

"Yes," Baolan says, "but he's used to it. And I don't hold with teaching humans Helltongue if they're not actually Soldiers. It gives them the wrong sort of ideas." She's lanky and narrow, in the kind of vessel likely used to pass as male in other eras, when that sort of thing mattered more. (Though it still matters now. Even demons react to me differently depending on which body I'm in, here on the corporeal. Human attitudes get into our heads, just like they get into our music and food and clothing choices. There's more of them than us.)

"Your friend, your rules," Yuliang says, thus smoothing over some point of Impudite territorial conflict Guo's accidentally stirred up. She bestows a pretty smile on the one unpossessed mortal at the table. "Are you bringing him to the club tonight?"

"No, but I can pick up someone else to drive." Baolan is as happy to drop the topic, but she's annoyed at Guo now, no matter how little of that makes it to her face or voice. Maybe I should drop the kid a hint about that later. "You're on your own tomorrow night, though. I have to go lend a hand with that phone thing."

"Bit last-minute, isn't that?"

I am getting better at reading the actual meaning below Yuliang's default cheery tones. She's diving right into company business, and not pleased to hear about a change of plans. That's a little surprising, as I was under the impression that the Marquis handled this territory personally, and Yuliang seems like she couldn't even imagine breathing a word against her boss.

Ours, I mean.

I need to get that into my head.

Yuliang and Baolan are having a slow, cryptic conversation about some project that I think I'm not cleared to hear details about. Or Guo isn't, being young and vulnerable and liable to talk about things he shouldn't if any demon with that kind of resonance comes along and applies the mental or emotional thumbscrews. Demons are very good at making people do things they don't mean to, which is probably an answer right there for the question of why we spend so much time fighting each other despite an enemy to theoretically unite against.

"Tell me you have a pack of cigarettes," I say to Guo. And he is so delighted to show me that he does, and a lighter too, I suspect he picked them up for my visit and has been waiting for the question.

So we adjourn to a balcony where we can watch a smoggy sunrise--this apartment isn't nearly as high up as Yuliang's--and the rising city, which seems less bright in the sunlight than it did at night. Less like an image of The City At Night from the Marches, more like a place where real people live.

Real people, like me and Guo and the human he's giving a hit of nicotine. Either the host or the Shedite's practiced enough to handle smoking smoothly. I feel vaguely as if I should warn him against lung cancer risks. The kid's too young to pick up bad habits like these.

The human kid and Guo are both older than I was when I started smoking, and started setting much larger things on fire.

"You shouldn't tell Impudites how to handle humans," I tell him, keeping my voice low because the balconies here are packed near each other. "It'll annoy them."

"What I said was true, though," he says, following my cue on volume. Or maybe he knows that much already. I shouldn't assume that he's an idiot or a fool, with a great deal more education in this company than I've had. "It was rude."

"Sure. And maybe with another Shedite, you could say that. But you don't tell _Impudites_ how to handle humans. That's their whole thing. And some of them are sensitive enough about being considered less impressive demons than most, as a Band. You don't like other people telling you how to do Shedite things, do you?"

"No," he says, "but everyone does." He shoots a look at me sideways. He's actually smoking his cigarette, a mouthful of smoke held and then puffed out, while I let mine burn down between my fingers. "You do, too."

"True. You'd rather I didn't?"

"I--guess not. I mean. I'd rather you tell me if it's important. You're not mean about it." He's gone moody, but not, thank god, whiny. Yet. "It feels like I'm going to be the one everyone else gives instructions to _forever_. Even if I'm not the newest in the company, I'm the smallest."

"You'll probably grow out of that."

"Probably."

I nudge him with an elbow. "What, do coworkers hassle you about that? Isn't Julie--Yuliang watching out for you?"

"They're fine! They really are." He hunches over the balcony wall, staring down at the street. "They're _helpful_. Sometimes it feels like I can't do anything right. Maybe it's the hosts I pick? I choose someone who looks like they know what they're doing, and get in their head, and find out that _they_ think they're faking. So I'm never sure if I'm doing the right thing."

"Fact of life," I say. "Except for Balseraphs, who are wrong as often as anyone else, but better at telling themselves they aren't. I'm glad Yuliang's helping you out. She knows from people."

"She does." Guo leans towards me. Not so close as to touch, so I let him. "She's...she tells me how to do things. Especially if I ask. Mostly I hang out with the humans and try to get the gang working properly. They don't know how to organize much of anything. It's like they're more into the _idea_ of a gang than doing things with it. That means no one much bothers them, the real gangs know they're not dangerous, but if they get better maybe that'll change, and..."

He trails off, and has another drag of his cigarette. I turn mine between my fingers, watching it burn down further. It's soothing. I should find out if Zabina will let me smoke somewhere in the gardens. Probably worth asking.

"I miss Seattle," he says. "Being around Yuliang and Lanthano and Zabina and, and _you_ , all that time. And the boss was just across the hall. She asked me to do things. Now that I'm here, it means she thinks I can do things on my own, and that's _good_ , but I don't see her so much, and this is the first time I've seen you since, and I almost never see Lanthano, and...I like him, you know? Even if it doesn't mean anything."

"Why shouldn't it mean things?"

"Because he likes _everyone_ ," Guo says, sharp for an instant. "So it doesn't matter if I like him or not."

"He doesn't like everyone," I say. "He gets along with everyone. It's not the same."

Guo is silent again as he contemplates this distinction, and pumps more smoke into his host's lungs. Can't be that much worse than the air down on the street.

"So how do you tell the difference?" he asks. "Between someone who's nice because that's what they're like, and someone who actually likes you?"

"The easy answer is that the people who actually like you will find more reasons to spend time with you than they need to."

"So that's wrong. Because it's the easy answer."

"It's wrong. Because you don't know anyone perfectly, so you can't be _sure_ they don't have other motives. Or that someone who doesn't spend time with you might be stopped by reasons you don't see, even if they do like you."

"I don't like not knowing," Guo says. "It makes everything harder!"

"Well, that's life. No one knows everything they want to. Especially about other people. Even Superiors can't exactly read minds, or they'd never end up with Renegades or Outcasts or being surprised by something that goes against their plans." I tap the ash off my cigarette, then turn the rest to dust. It's burning too close to my fingers for comfort. "You can actually get inside people's heads. That's as close as it comes to really knowing what people think and feel. That's what Shedim get, that no one else does."

"But it only works on humans."

"There's a lot more of them than us."

"But they don't--" Guo shuts up as the balcony door slides open.

"Lee," Yuliang asks, "do you have any strong urge to visit tourist sites while you're here?"

"It depends on what my other options are." I pat Guo on the shoulder, and head back inside. "What kind of tourist attractions are we talking?"

#

Yuliang and Baolan--who I hadn't expected to come with us--drag me through boutiques, department stores, and at least one overpriced vintage clothing store, which only goes to show that hipsters get everywhere. Ash would probably love this place; I find myself getting mulish by mid-afternoon. It's not the walking, or even trying on all the clothes. It's the weight of being surrounded by a culture outside of my experience, and languages I don't know.

I can introduce myself and explain that I don't speak anything but English in Mandarin. That's about as useful as you'd expect. So Yuliang handles everything, and Baolan makes amused comments, which sometimes get translated. I'd be more annoyed if I felt like they were mocking me, but they aren't; they're just having fun with something that's more their form of entertainment than mine.

And I am _ever_ so agreeable, for as long as I can keep it up, because I am glad to be out of the house. Nothing I do here matters very much, and in some ways that's freeing. I'm not being tested. I'm playing a role for Yuliang, who likes having someone she can tell what to do, and it works for both of us. No real pressure.

Mid-afternoon, we take a break for a late lunch in a restaurant that caters to international business travelers--mostly men--and somewhat to tourists. This is a concession to me, and it's still a relief to have a menu I can read, the buzz of conversation from other tables with words I can understand without having to pause and think about it.

"You're almost ready for the club," Yuliang tells me. "Do you want a martini?"

"I don't really do cocktails. What kind of club is it?"

"Oh, you know," she says breezily, with a flip of her hand. "Clubs. I figure they're all the same to you, but you might have fun with this one, and if you don't, we won't stay long."

"Fair enough," I say. She's hiding something, and I know it, and she _knows_ I know it, and none of this is important enough to make me want to push. "But 'almost ready' has got to be 'ready' because I can't do another clothing store today. I'll end up setting something on fire. Or someone."

"You could still use a scarf," she says. "Accessories help, and they're hardly any trouble at all! Is that so much?"

A scarf is not so much, but she has, piece by piece, replaced nearly every bit of clothing I came in. I'm in a red shirt that's almost too tight, jeans with an oil-slick shine instead of the dull denim I'm accustomed to, and I have somehow acquired a new belt. All I've still got on from before are my shoes and jacket, and she's definitely been eyeing those shoes. This is not an outfit that calls for the kind of shoes I wear for climbing buildings.

Baolan orders us all martinis, regardless of what I said. She maintains a steady amusement at the conversation. _She's_ not being dressed up by any Impudite other than herself.

"You know where everything is in this city," I say.

"Of _course_."

"So take me to a bookstore. Help me find a book that I might be able to read, in another few months of study. And _then_ , sure, scarf-shopping."

Yuliang taps a finger to her lips. "Scarves, then books."

"You can make finding the perfect scarf take all day. Books, then scarves."

" _You_ could make finding the perfect book take all day," Yuliang says, which she has no evidence for, but is true. And the thought had crossed my mind. "Scarves, then books, then shoes."

"But I won't, because I'm a guest, and it would be rude. Books. Then scarves. And then, if there's time to do that and drop things off back at your place, shoes."

"He has you," Baolan says, accepting a martini from the smiling waitress. "Concede before he starts negotiating for something more tedious than books."

"There's not much more tedious than books," Yuliang says. She sighs dramatically, and lifts her martini. "Books, scarves, shoes, home, club, we'd better start soon."

Baolan ends up stealing my martini, and I wouldn't dream of objecting. It's not safe to get my brain fuzzed around Yuliang, even if the danger is entirely minor and personal.

#

There must be at least four hundred people in this club, and whatever the local fire codes are, they _shouldn't_ be okay with this. Yuliang explained to me on the way in that Friday nights are the busiest nights here. Maybe on a normal night, there's enough room to breathe. Or _move_.

"You'll be fine," Yuliang says. In this vessel, he's dressed all in black and red with gold accents on his jewelry. If the music and crowd weren't this loud, I'd be able to hear some of those earrings clinking against each other while he leans forward over the table where he's parked me. "I'll find you someone to talk to!"

"How?" I ask, but he's already disappeared into the crowd, slipping between dancers who are packed nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor. One of the advantages of being an Impudite of Theft is never being _caught_ in a crowd. And Baolan vanished shortly after we stepped through the door, dragging her human away.

Or possibly his human. Baolan didn't change vessels while we were at Yuliang's place--I would've heard--but vanished into the bathroom with an armful of clothes collected from the floor, and stepped back out looking distinctly male. I'm no longer sure which variety of vessel that Impudite owns, and I am sure it's none of my business if they don't care to clarify. Does help explain why Yuliang and Lanthano have offered to help me swap the presentation of my female vessel; it must be par for the course inside the company.

Whatever the details there, we're all now dressed for a club full of men. Sweaty, dancing men who largely appear to be having a better time than I am. I'd almost dared to hope we could skip this whole affair, and get straight to the post-club sex, but, no. I'm visiting Yuliang. A club _will_ happen. And she's so pleased to have found me one that's entirely full of men--I believe she's extrapolated from my preference for Lanthano--that I would feel ungrateful to resent it too much.

Which is probably part of her calculations too. Yuliang is darling, and as manipulative as all fuck. Impudite.

Baolan reappears first, his human deposited somewhere else. He carries two drinks, and slides one over to me. Unlike Yuliang, he has a seat, though it's on the table itself. "No dancing?"

"We'd lose the table." I have to raise my voice to be heard, even as he leans in nearer to me. His vessel isn't as attractive as most Impudites pick, but it's interesting. Narrow and intent, a little more ferrety in male dress than female.

"Never mind the table, we can get another." With two Impudites at hand, tables _will_ clear if we ask for them. "Want to dance?"

"Wouldn't know how."

"Want to learn?"

"Not really?"

Baolan grins at me. Sharp and toothy, a smile that transforms his face into something more dangerous and desirable all at once. "Drink something," he says, "and relax. You're in good hands."

He nudges the glass in front of me a few centimeters closer, with two fingers. Slips off the table, and slings an arm around someone's shoulders. That man's smiling back at him before Baolan even opens his mouth.

I pick up my drink, and have a swig. It's not like I have anything else to do in here.

Much as I would've preferred a beer, the cocktail Baolan left me with isn't terrible. Bitter and punchy, without a hint of cloying sweetness. I take my own sweet time over it, and I'm still most of the way through by the time Yuliang returns with a human in tow.

"Here," Yuliang says, pushing the man towards me by the shoulders. (The man so being pushed isn't resisting, either, but has the cheerfully resigned look of someone who has been convinced by Yuliang to do something he hadn't considered until she brought it up.) "You two can talk, and I'll check back on you later. Have you seen Baolan?"

"He came, he went," I say, lifting my drink. "Should I be tracking him?"

"No," Yuliang says, and rolls his eyes. "That's just--never mind. I'll be back." He slips into the crowd once more. Impudites use crowds the way some people use doors.

The human squeezes in beside me, almost knee-to-knee on one side of the table. Since the alternative is trying to keep a chair back from being thumped constantly by people pushing by, I can't blame him. "Call me Donny," he says, offering a hand. His accent for English is almost as bad as mine for Mandarin, which means I have to focus to understand him in this noise. "Lee?"

"Leo." I shake his hand like someone polite and friendly should do. "Sorry about this. He's...pushy."

"Every time," Donny says. "I don't mind! I would say if I did." Which is so nearly a quote of some things Yuliang says--

Well, it's not my job to second-guess someone else's reasons for having a chatty conversation with me in a noisy club. I drain what's left of my drink. "What are we supposed to talk about?"

"He said you're interested in--" Donny pauses, translating something into English. "How cities are put together?"

"By and large," I say, and lean in nearer myself so that I can hear what the hell he's saying. "That's something you're interested in?"

"Yes! I do traffic." Donny draws lines along the table with his fingers. "How the patterns work, the lights, the way they change at different times of day, how construction and repair move these patterns. How to control them. What can't be controlled."

"Half a sec," I say, and double-check that I did indeed keep a pocket notebook and pencil inside my coat pocket. "Show me?"

Ten minutes later, Baolan reappears with a human on his arm and a smug expression. Also, two drinks, which he sets in front of each of us. He doesn't so much as interrupt our conversation while tugging his latest conquest away.

Donny picks up one drink, I take the other, and we get back to talking about how pedestrian traffic interacts with vehicle traffic, and the relative advantages and problems of running some damn bridges over streets to let the foot traffic avoid the cars entirely.

We're deep into a discussion of footbridge design that allows for wheelchair access when Yuliang stops at the table. "Have you seen Baolan?"

"He was just here," I said. "Well. Fifteen minutes or so?" I tear out a sheet of paper, and hand it over to Donny. "Do you know if there are any better notebooks in this bar?"

"Probably not," Yuliang says. He casts a look over the table, and says, "Don't go anywhere, okay?"

"Wasn't planning on it."

He nods shortly, and stalks back into the crowd. Now there's an Impudite on a mission.

And not two minutes later, Baolan's back, with a different set of arm candy and another set of drinks. "Yu does know how to make a trip to the club more fun," he says. "Still not up for dancing?"

"Not unless dancing gets me larger sheets of paper. Do you know Donny?"

Baolan nods briefly to the human, which I guess is as far as this introduction will go. "If you see Yu, tell him that I'll be back in an hour."

"Where are you going?" I ask, and promptly regret it. But it only gets me a sharp, sharp smile from Baolan, and off he goes.

"Probably they're--" Donny begins, but I hold up a hand.

"Figured it out myself. Never mind. Can you tell me more about how the train system works with this?"

He does. It's complicated. Trains seem like they should simplify, all set schedules and set tracks and central stations, nothing like standard car traffic that wants to stop and start and turn and meander in any which way that it's allowed, but the scheduling of a really robust rail system turns out to be more complex than I had anticipated.

Yuliang is nearly stomping when he next appears. "Did you see--"

"Found someone to have sex with, back in half an hour," I say. "Do you want to leave a message?"

Yuliang closes his eyes for a moment. Takes a deep breath. And then says, pleasantly, "Not at all. Do you need another drink?"

The question is addressed to both of us, and Donny says, "If you're offering..."

"Mm, yes." Yuliang's pulling himself back together from whatever annoyance he has with Baolan--with the game Baolan is playing against him--and he's doing a damn fine job of it. He radiates confidence in a three-meter radius. "I'll be right back. Don't let me interrupt."

He returns with more drinks, and doesn't interrupt. Donny's giving me cross-sections of multi-level train stations, and discussing foot traffic inside. I'm doing a lot of thoughtful nodding while I compare these to the way Hell lays out its traffic, and can only conclude that if people like Donny ever make it to Hell, they're not allowed to organize anything.

Maybe the only urban planners we get in Hell are the ones who hit their fates by being really amazingly bad at their jobs. It would explain a lot.

When Baolan appears next, my drink is empty and I'm feeling like maybe it's time to stop if I want to walk home in a straight line, even allowing for the gaps between drinks. He's alone now--as alone as anyone can be in this club, which is not very--and looking rather thoughtful. "Did Yu stop by?"

"A few times."

"Did he seem annoyed?"

"No, of course not," I say. "Why would he?"

Baolan grins. "You need another drink."

"I'm pretty sure I don't."

"You do," he says. "You're still not dancing." And he's back with two more--only an Impudite could get new drinks that fast in this mob--within minutes. "If you see him, say hello."

"I may have had too many," Donny says, when Baolan's out of earshot. (Which is approximately one meter of space, given the noise.) "But if they're buying, why not?"

"Why not?" I echo, and lift my glass. I'm unlikely to end up dancing regardless.

Donny lays a hand on my thigh. I move his hand politely back, and ask a leading question about traffic patterns on holidays. He accepts both with good grace, which almost makes me feel bad. He's not half as pushy as Yuliang is, and while he's far from handsome by the usual human standards, he's pleasant to talk to.

But I don't have sex with humans. It's a bad idea for a variety of reasons. First on the list is that I'm not very fond of having sex with people I need to lie to, and if I'm going to put all the work into lying, I'd damn well better be getting more out of it than laid.

"All the patterns of traffic," Donny tells me, flipping to a fresh page in my memo book, "come from seeing where people want to be. They find a way to get there, as fast and easy as they can. Not straight lines, but easy, fast lines. Or the lines that seem fast. Part of the job of a man looking at these patterns is to see not only what would be fastest, most efficient, but how to make it look that way to the people down on the street. The ones who can't see the whole from above."

There's an explanation for life that you could build your entire world around. I've heard worse. I nod, and ask about parks, and drink.

#

The taxi ride back is spent with Yuliang and Baolan arguing about something. They're arguing in Mandarin--I assume, since I very occasionally catch a word--and not too fervently, so I rest my cheek against the window and watch the lights pass by. My head's not quite spinning. More drinks than I kept track of, spaced out over several hours. I can't tell if the ringing in my ears is from the alcohol or the music we've left behind.

"Can he still walk?" Baolan asks. The taxi has stopped, and I recognize the door over there. We're back at Yuliang's apartment again. If I am very lucky, it'll be _hours_ before I have to buy clothing or listen to loud music again.

"Between the two of us, a dead man could walk," Yuliang says.

"I'm _fine_ ," I say, and prove it by getting out of the cab and up to the door without falling over anything at all. Yuliang catches up with me while I'm trying to work out if I ought to pick the lock on the door or wait for her, and wraps an arm around me.

"You're better than fine," she says, "but Lee, sweetie, why don't you stick close?"

"If you didn't want me to be drunk," I explain, while she escorts us towards the elevators, "you should've brought me fewer drinks."

Baolan appears at my other side. I didn't hear his footsteps, which should probably worry me, but no worry is making it through this haze right now. "Who says we didn't want you drunk?" he asks. It sounds like a rhetorical question. I don't try to answer it.

They escort me into the elevator like I'm being marched away. Off to the land of peculiar Impudites who all want something, and sometimes what they want is me, but as Guo would say, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I can want a car and leave it behind three days later. There's no telling what people really think.

Maybe it doesn't matter. I should've told Guo that. If you can never tell what people really think, you should stop worrying about it, and treat what they do as the sum of the situation. That's much simpler.

Yuliang nips at my ear, and then grins past me at his fellow Impudite. "Did you know he starts blushing if you talk dirty at him?"

"I hadn't heard," Baolan says.

"Lanthano," I say, with what dignity I can muster, "should learn to leave a few things unsaid."

"Never," says Baolan. "Talk about reducing our efficiency as a company. Next you'll say we shouldn't get new coworkers drunk and take advantage of them."

"No one's saying that." Yuliang murmurs this in my ear. "Are they?"

"You're being much too vague for that to work." Baolan tucks his chin against my shoulder--he's no taller than I am--and whispers absolutely filthy things into my ear all the ride up, while Yuliang laughs.

Damn right I'm blushing when we get back to the apartment, but--oh, Yuliang's laughing, but he's not exactly laughing at me, even when he is, and I am not Charmed, but I am willing to be...charmed. To accept this kind of teasing as no worse than the way they pat Guo on the head and tell him to stick to non-alcoholic beverages.

It's not that they "mean well" but that they don't mean to hurt anything. And maybe what they intend does matter. And. This is not exactly what I would have chosen to start with, in this company, but they're the ones who are here, and I like Yuliang, and I think I could like Baolan, and I knew what question I was answering when I accepted all those drinks.

Yuliang opens the door to his apartment, and Baolan drags me inside, sliding me free of the other Impudite's grasp. "Why didn't you ask Guo along?" he asks, I'm not sure to who. "The kid needs more practice."

"You know what they say." Yuliang closes the door, and stalks after us. "One's a disappointment, two's great, three's perfect, four's too much trouble to keep track of. All those limbs. Besides, Lee doesn't like doing Shedim, because they're inside humans."

I plant a foot against the wall before I can be pushed down onto the couch. Not on that pile of clothes, I'm not. "What's five?"

"The company party," Baolan says.

"But only after midnight." Yuliang sweeps a portion of the clutter off the couch. "You'll be there, next time, and you can see for yourself. It's fun."

"What I believe would be 'fun'," Baolan says, "is less talking and fewer clothes and more fucking." He shoves harder, and I sit down hard on the couch. "Anyone with me on this one?"

I stare up at the ceiling and the Impudites and say, "We're not going to end up with _fewer_ clothes in this apartment unless someone brought a shovel."

"You know what I mean," Baolan says.

I do. I'm not about to argue.


	18. In Which One Out Of Three Isn't Bad

Yuliang has somewhere to be in the morning. She swaps vessels, and kisses me goodbye (with the sort of kiss that would imply she wanted to say something other than "see you in a few hours" if she didn't proceed out the door), and leaves me sprawled in her increasingly messy apartment, dealing with something of a hangover.

Baolan stalks into the room, and throws open the curtains.

"Nn," I say, or something along those lines.

"It's a beautiful morning," Baolan says, and props their hands on their hips, staring out at that view. "It had _better_ be, for what this costs."

I prop myself up on my elbows. There is a couch beneath me, and it's mostly just couch, though I may be lying on someone's shirt. Baolan found another complete outfit somewhere in here--I suppose they're over frequently--and changed in the bathroom, and now they look like neither man nor woman specifically. Or maybe like both. I think they could switch from one to the other in posture and voice, which is something I should think about. I need to play the female thing better if that's the Role I picked.

"You don't have a place like this?"

"No," Baolan says, and turns away from the window, half their face in the shadow. "It's not unusual, but it's not exactly company standard, either. This the sort of thing you'd like to work your way up to?"

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"You're good at those answers." Baolan leaves the poor defenseless window alone, and comes to sit at the edge of the couch, looking down at me. "At least you got out alive."

I don't know how to respond to that, and I could use a glass of water. So I roll off the couch and go find myself a clean cup (it's a miracle, in here) to fill from the tap. "You around for a while this morning?"

"Not much longer."

When I turn back with my glass of water, Baolan has chosen to be female again. Same clothes, same vessel. It's in how she sits, and the way she holds her face. The way she crosses her legs.

"You're good at that," I say, and sit down beside her. I wonder if _not much longer_ is ten minutes or two hours.

"Practice," she says. "Can I see the other vessel? I'll top up your Essence after."

It's a reasonable request, in the company. And no one hears anything from this place. I shift to the other vessel, a little too warmly dressed for this apartment. "Do you have more than the one?"

"Only the one," she says. "Easy enough to dress it up or down for the circumstances. Yuliang seduces the CEOs, but sometimes you need a set of eyes on the factory floor." She takes a strand of my hair between thumb and forefinger, turns it over. "The red hair is different, but that's about what I expected."

"I have a headache, Baolan. Say it straight out." I'd rather she not say it at all, but if she won't take the first hint, she's not going to let it rest on the second.

She lets go of my hair, and sits back. Now that's a deliberate offer of space if I've ever seen one. "I liked Henry," she says. "Knew him before Zhune took him away. He was nothing wildly unusual, only..." She snaps her fingers, swaps into Helltongue. "Quirky. Maybe that's the word. It was all for show, but that's Impudites, isn't it? And he was picked to run around with a much more senior demon, someone who would teach him all sorts of things. They had. Such fun."

"They lasted a long time," I say. This much I know.

"A good long time, as Zhune's partners go. Decades upon decades." Baolan glances at the enormous windows, then back to me. "Do you want the whole story? You know the gist. He broke Henry down, piece by piece. When it was entirely obvious to everyone who'd known him, he took Henry away, to a completely different continent, so that no one who knew could object. And then when he'd broken everything he found interesting, he abandoned one Force-stripped Impudite back to Stygia."

"I know. Yeah. The basics."

"I wanted to save Henry," Baolan says. She doesn't temper that with voice or expression, and I appreciate the honesty. "But he broke hard, and the boss never would have taken him in after what he did. Even if it was Zhune's fault."

"So you got me instead."

"There's no _instead_ about it," Baolan says. Not sharp. Hard, like there's a foundation of truth under what she's saying. "We got you, because Zhune shouldn't be allowed to keep anyone worth having, and people I trust say you're worth having. I took that on their word. It's not my decision; whatever weirdness the Japan division gets up to, this isn't a democracy. Now that I've had a chance to look you over? I'll agree with them."

"Are there many people in the company who don't agree?"

She rolls her eyes, a perfectly Yuliang expression. "Some people believe we shouldn't be expanding at all. That's nothing personal. A few don't like bringing in a new Calabite. That's as personal as it'll get. Ultimately, no one _argues_ with the Marquis."

That's not as reassuring as it's probably meant to be, but I'll take it. "Could be worse, I suppose."

"You should stop flinching," Baolan says, and leans forward fast and sudden, to poke me in the chest. Two fingers together, her favorite way of making a point. "You're with _us_ now. There's not a place in Hell that works together better, and no one will lay a hand on you if you tell them not to." Her smile returns, just an edge of it. "And plenty will lay hands on you if you ask nicely, so keep that in mind."

"Oh, believe me," I say, "that hasn't left my mind."

"The next time you stop by," she says, "we'll take you to one of my places for a night. There are more options available there."

"I hadn't really felt low on options here, as these things go." Unless she's talking about entertainment systems, or extra bedrooms. Whatever Impudites consider necessary to a proper household.

"Yuliang has great enthusiasm," Baolan says, "but a tendency to stick to the basics. It serves her well. Not everyone shares the same tastes." She tosses her head, hair shifting. Shifts her shoulders. And then they are in-between again, no longer caring to keep to that female presentation. I want _lessons_. "You should come back to my place next time. I'll put you on a leash and take out the riding crop, and we'll annoy the neighbors with the sound." Their smile grows. "You blush even brighter in this vessel. Still, I prefer the other. More like a person, and less like someone's choice of candy."

"I really wish," I say, careful as I can, "that Lanthano would--talk less about some things."

"He didn't tell me anything about that," Baolan says. "I'm good at figuring these things out on my own. And you can't expect people in the company not to gossip. It's part of how we stay connected, scattered across the planet and pursuing different projects." They stand up, run hands through their hair, and change their posture. It's all about how he holds his weight. I can see it happening, though I couldn't possibly imitate it.

"You'll do fine," he says. "I need to run."

"That phone thing," I say, and then drink my water. As if that'll cool my skin down too. Maybe another shower would help.

"The phone thing." He kisses his fingertips to me, and leaves on that. Nothing I mind. Plenty to think about in his absence.

#

I spend too long in the shower, not thinking about anything useful. My mind's like that sometimes. Chasing ridiculous private thoughts around in circles, when I should be thinking about...I don't know. What Zabina wants from me. (It's no use thinking about what the Marquis wants.) Whether I should call Lanthano and ask him over some time, wait for him to give an invitation, ask Zabina if I'm allowed to have friends over and which ones are acceptable to her in her place...

I wish I had my own space. But that wouldn't be safe, would it? And it's a particular type of _not safe_ in her mind, because I can't drive half an hour from the house without checking in constantly on my phone, but I can travel to Shanghai to wander around with Yuliang for three days, be left alone in this place for hours, and Zabina didn't seem concerned about any danger that might show up in this city. _Work on your Mandarin_ , she said. Not much more than that.

Zhune's willing to travel to Europe. But he won't step one foot in China, maybe not all of Asia. The Marquis is too close here for him to feel safe.

Maybe I will never see him again. Maybe no one's quite sure if he's still attuned, but he can be very practical. Or the Boss could tell him to do it. Take the attunement off, go find some other partner. Someone else to break. Someone who'll last a while longer, decades and decades instead of the way I shattered in, oh, how long was it? Ten years? Ten years is nothing. Even humans don't get much of anywhere in ten years. And I couldn't keep it together that long before I ran away to the first hand offered me.

Not the first hand. Just. The one that seemed safest.

Zhune never would've caught up with me in Heaven.

But who'd want that? Risk death to sit around in eternal peace. I can't imagine it. I don't even know how Penny stands it. Hell's no vacation place, but things happen there. I can talk to people. Angels and blessed souls, whatever they have up there, all those Malakim, I can't imagine what it would be like. Nothing good. The wrong kind of safe, where, yes, I kept that safe, I locked it away in a box and covered it in concrete and dropped it into the sea, it's as _safe_ as it'll ever get, that's what that would've gotten me. Here I'm at least moving around.

These aren't useful thoughts.

Out of the shower, the apartment's dead quiet aside from the central air hissing through the vents. Presumably the walls have good sound-proofing--I have to hope so, given last night--and most of the people who live on this floor will be out for the day already. Unless they're all sleeping in, on Saturday? I don't know the schedules for this place. City, culture, subculture, this little slice of the world that I'm in for a few days.

College was like that, too. So long ago I could almost forget how disorienting the first several weeks were. The only things that made sense were classes and my Habbalite supervisor. Things don't have to be _nice_ to make sense. Just. Predictable.

I'm glad the company doesn't take Habbalah at all.

Probably there's someone out there who was glad the company didn't take Calabim--that only the Marquises, exceptional and far above them, represented that Band--to whom I'm some kind of affront. Or maybe most of the people in the company don't care all that much. It's not tiny, like that Seattle apartment with the five of us packed in together. There are somewhere under thirty proper employees, plus people like the demonling interns, or C, who might tell me more brain-bending things if I went to talk to her again. Most of the people in this company, like most classmates I've had, just don't have a reason to pay attention to me unless we've been assigned to work together.

After some digging, I unearth the books we picked up yesterday, and curl up on the couch with two of those: a children's book, full of bright pictures, on the city; and a new Chinese-English dictionary to refer back to.

An hour later, I've made it six pages in.

The knock on the door is welcome, and clearly not Yuliang, who has keys to her own apartment and an excellent ability to open the door even without those. I check through the peephole; the kid on the other side is taller than me, no one I've seen before, and not dressed for this building. Which he clearly knows, by how he keeps glancing around him, and shifting from foot to foot.

I open the door for Guo. "Come inside, before you spontaneously combust from nerves."

"Is that a thing?" he asks, hurrying in.

"Not so far as I know, but with the number of weird attunements and Words and dissonance conditions out there..." I wave him towards the cleared spot on the couch I was occupying. "What's up?"

He produces an unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter, laid out on his open palms like an offering. "Since you didn't have any before, and I wasn't sure if you'd had a chance to buy any since, because Yuliang doesn't smoke, and I thought you'd maybe like them?"

I take both, because like hell am I going to turn down a present he's come all the way over to deliver. "You're right; I hadn't had a chance to pick up any such thing. Thanks, Guo." This is the point where I'd offer him a drink if this were my apartment, but it's--well. Like Yuliang would mind. "You want something to drink? I don't know what's in the fridge."

"Anything would be fine," Guo says, and trails along behind me to check the fridge's contents instead of sitting down. "Your, uh, clothes seem nice?"

"Thanks." I find the fridge is almost entirely full of beverages. Most of them soda variants, and several of those are imports. (Unless beer is packaged like soda, here? I guess there's only one way to find out.) I grab two at random, and pass one to Guo. "Zabina picked it out. Or maybe her secretary. Did you pick the host yourself? Someone from the same gang?"

Guo nods rapidly. "I move between them. It's not good to stick around in one person too long, or they get all, you know, doing things that are different enough that other people notice, or that's going to get them into real trouble. Adrian said that--" He scrubs at his face, and then has a hasty swig of his soda. "It should get better. I mean, I should get better. With practice. Doing things in a small way, instead of too fast or too much. It's a little harder with these people than in Seattle, because they think different things are what they wouldn't do, so I have to figure out what makes them say no before I can actually do it. There's this one guy in the gang who's not in charge, but has a lot of the ideas, and I don't like being in _his_ head. It's too hard to figure out what he wouldn't do. I think the rest of them should get rid of him, before he gets them into trouble."

"I know the type." I slouch against the wall between kitchen and bedroom, or at least the half-walled area where the bed is. That hasn't picked up a complete new layer of clothing since it was cleared off last night, but I'm not about to go sit down there in this company. "Do you have plans to get rid of him?"

"Not plans, exactly," Guo says. "I just think they should. None of them really like him, exactly. You can tell--I _know_ from in their heads. But some of them feel like they owe him, or he's useful, or... I don't know. A lot of them don't think about it at all. He's there, and they grew up with him, so it's just a thing. Being with him."

"A lot of humans don't think about a hell of a lot of anything," I say, and raise my soda can to him before drinking. It does not taste like any soda I've had before, and I'm not going to try very hard to figure out what flavor it is. "I'd say that you should start pulling things together, and getting these kids organized, but like you said, that'd draw attention. Maybe it's more useful to see how they do things, and make some notes on how you'd do it differently, for later. Do you have any official projects?"

He shakes his head rapidly. "I'm just learning how to act. How to act more like a human when I'm--like, I'm always _in_ them, but there's a difference between trying to act like the human I'm in specifically, that you can sort of let them run on their own sometimes and just watch, but then there's trying to act like a human even while you're running it, the sort no one should notice, which is a bit like acting like the person you're in, but a bit like acting like the sort of person people think you should be from what you look like, and..." He waves his hands helplessly. "I'm not explaining it right."

"No, I get it. Even as a Shedite, you need to be able to fake the humanity. Like a short-term Role."

"I wish I could just _have_ Roles," he says, fierce for an instant. "Or my own vessels. It's not fair that I can't. Every other demon can get vessels, but not us."

"If it were fair," I say, "it wouldn't be life. It'd be some sort of thought experiment. Calabim having Discord built in isn't fair either, but that's what we have."

"I know," Guo says. He sidles over nearer to me, and ends up sitting on the counter as an excuse for the motion. "Leo?"

"Yes?"

"Do you--" He runs out of nerve, shoulders curling in. "It's something I should get over, right? Like Adrian says."

"Adrian sounds like an asshole."

"Oh, yes," he says, "but everyone knows that."

"Everyone else knows that. I'm working it out from context." And I'd rather the kid not start asking awkward questions with answers that will make both of us uncomfortable, whether I tell the truth or not. "That reminds me. If I asked you to write up something for me, would you have a good way to send it to me back at Zabina's place? A secure way to send it along?"

"Oh, definitely," Guo says. "Unless--you're not trying to hide it from Yuliang?"

"No, nothing like that. It's just company business." I nudge him in the shoulder with a fist. "Which is why I'm asking you for help. You've been in the company for years, and I just got here. So you know everyone. I don't. Would you be willing to help me out with that some?"

"Of course I'd help you!" He sits up straighter, eyes lighting. "Except--I mean, _anyone_ else in the company knows more than I do, on that. Zabina could tell you about everyone, Yuliang knows everyone best, I know less than anyone else."

"Anyone except me. And you know what people are like right now. If I ask Yuliang to tell me about, say, Baolan, she's going to tell me about what they were like when they arrived, and that's all going to inform her explanation. You can tell me what Baolan is like to someone new to the company, and this year in particular. That's a lot more useful to me."

Guo chews on a knuckle for a moment. If I weren't trying to be kind--now there's a thought I should come back to--I'd tell him to quit it, because it doesn't go well with that vessel. "I can do that," he says. "You want to hear about everyone? I can go through the org chart and write up something on everyone. I don't know some people very well, but I've met them all at least a few times."

"That puts you way ahead of me," I say. "All the employees would be fine. I'm not too worried about finding out what the human souls and contractors are like, or...the interns? Is that what the demonlings are?"

"Interns, right," Guo says. "They don't get to stay, but we help them find good jobs when they grow up. Some of them are nice."

In context, I can't tell if _nice_ is faint praise or significant. When it comes to the interns, I'm pretty sure I don't need to spend a lot of energy on finding out. "So just the employees. Write up whatever you think is important, and send it along when you're done. Then I can help you out some time later, right? It's only fair."

"What kind of help?" Guo asks, and I can't tell if he's being practical or mercenary. I'll assume the former.

"Something about as much trouble. That'd be fair." I leave the wall for the couch, and he follows me along, puppy-like. If Shedim could take on vessels, I think he'd do well in a dog vessel. Wide-eyed and earnest and trying to cuddle up close, waiting for attention and reassurance.

I let him sit near, and lean in, and _not_ crawl into my lap, and ask him questions about his gang--what they do, who they are, what they _want_ to do, what he means to do with them, how he thinks he should best go after that--until he has to run again.

It almost feels like cheating, to turn the conversation away every time he's gearing himself up for a question I don't want. I don't know. Maybe it'll teach him that he needs to build up some more self-confidence if he wants to say what he actually means, and not let other people control what's discussed.

#

Yuliang doesn't get back until the sun's painting the skyline red. "That took _so_ much longer than I planned," she says, with the brand of cheer that tells me she's angry at someone who isn't me. "You must be half dead of boredom. Or did Baolan keep you company?"

"Not for long," I say. "But Guo stopped by, and I got some reading done." I stopped working through the book when the headache built up too high, and used up the rest of my tiny notebook on drawing things that don't matter. Designs, mostly. Variations on what I can see out the window, working out from this one view how they might be put together inside, or could be, or would be if I were in charge. "Work's keeping you busy?"

"Other people's work," Yuliang says, now allowing herself an indignant sniff. "Some people have no sense of time management."

"And some people drop in on you for a full weekend on a half day's notice."

"I asked _you_ ," Yuliang says firmly, "so don't go taking the responsibility there. I'll blame other people. It's much easier. And more fun. We can talk about how terrible they are, and--mm, we should still have time to go pick up a new outfit for that vessel too."

I can see the next twelve hours of my visit stretching away in front of me, and what they will contain. And I'm at least _slightly_ better than Guo at keeping control of a discussion. "Yuliang, I'd rather not spend the evening buying clothes, or going to clubs. Could we just stay here?"

She perches on the arm of the couch beside me, and draws her fingers through my hair. "Wouldn't that be boring? You're on vacation. You're supposed to be having fun, or what's the point?"

"I'm not being quizzed on my language progress at every meal. That's a vacation right there, by my view of it. I'd just like to..." This would be easier to make a persuasive argument on if I were sure what I wanted, rather than what I didn't want. "Not do anything _challenging_ for a while."

Yuliang slides down into my lap. This works better with her vessel than it would've with Guo's host. "Perfectly understood, Lee," she says. "You've been run ragged, and there's such a thing as being out of energy for certain types of fun."

"Exactly," I say.

"And this way," she continues, warming to the idea so fast that I should probably be concerned, "we can have you try on all sorts of things in here, without you stressing out about going out into public in them, and maybe that way you can go back home with some better clubbing clothes. Zee hasn't bought you _any_ of those, has she?"

Oh yes. There was reason to be concerned.


	19. In Which Names Are Clarified

I have certainly lost track of the time, and this vessel doesn't have a watch on it--okay, does not have _anything_ on right now, never mind that--but I'd guess it's about one in the morning when the hammering starts up on the door. Yuliang says something in Mandarin that's probably very rude, and then in English, "Don't mind that."

My preference would be not to mind, as I'm exceedingly distracted right now, but the noise is distracting in turn. And not letting up. "Do you, ah, need to answer that?"

"If it were important," Yuliang says firmly, adjusting the position of her left hand with a graceful twist that punctuates the statement, "they would have texted. Might be some drunk at the wrong door."

This doesn't seem likely to me, but. Distracted. I hook an ankle over her hip. "Okay."

The noise cuts off abruptly. "See," Yuliang says. She tilts her head down until her hair's sweeping across my face. "Some things solve themselves--"

We both pause at the unmistakable sound, faint though it may be, of picks in the lock.

Yuliang repeats what she said before, more forcefully, and pulls off me in one fast motion. "Stay here," she says. "I'll take care of this."

The door's not visible from the bed, and I'm not inclined to go greet strangers while naked. Even so, I feel like I ought to be providing some sort of backup. "Do you need--"

"No," she says shortly, and tempers it with a smile afterward. "Wait here."

She rounds the corner while the door's opening. A shuffle of feet on the carpet, a conversation in Mandarin that I can't follow, her voice too low and the other voice--male, annoyed, clipped--too fast for me to even pick out words. I grab the nearest piece of clothing, and find it's one of Yuliang's shirts, some sparkly lace thing that would be worse than outright nudity as a choice for covering up.

The matter is rendered moot by a man stalking right up to the bed, Yuliang at his heels. He's tall and has a face built for sneering, and wears the sort of clothes Zabina would approve of. "This must be the new Destroyer," he says in Helltongue. He talks and walks like a Balseraph--or, no, he only talks and stands like one. When he moves, it's all wrong for one of the Liars. "Are we picking new employees on the basis of fuckability now?"

"Leo," Yuliang says, "this is Adrian. You've probably heard us mention him before, though maybe you didn't note the name because we just call him _that fucking asshole_."

"Nice to meet you," I say, and decide that if Captain Dio didn't demand to be addressed by any particular titles, a Knight can get by with the same level of respect.

"If you could bear to use your hands for something useful," Adrian says, turning back to Yuliang, "I need to take this man to Portland _without_ any inconvenient security problems along the way."

"When?" Yuliang asks. She folds her arms across her chest, and it's no effort to cover up nudity. I'm not surprised she thought she had a decent shot at getting a distinction; she's not backing down an inch for someone who outranks her in her own company. And she's not the sort of person to do that unless she knows she can get away with it.

"The flight leaves in six hours." He snaps a passport out to not so much offer her as stuff into her hands. "Fix it."

"You'd better not be flying through Seattle, given--"

"All I need," Adrian says, "is for you to take care of the mortal side. You _can_ do that, can't you? Haven't forgotten any important skills or lost track of useful contacts in the last few hours?"

Yuliang takes a breath. I would not be surprised by shouting. She merely smiles tightly, and says, "I need to make some calls. Don't go anywhere. Or break anything. Or act like a horrible person. The best you can, okay? Half credit for trying." She stalks away, never wobbling on a step across the floor, and slams the bathroom door behind her.

Speaking of backup, I feel insufficiently supported in this upcoming bout of socialization.

"So," I say, to the Shedite's unwavering sneer. "Does this come up often?"

"Yuliang stripping down pretty girls to fuck them? I'd say."

I cannot help but think of Ash, snarling with every ounce of territorial furor he could muster up, to set a hook in my partner. Who was spoiling for a fight. Who probably still owes Ash for that response, someone to argue against, or an argument he could win.

I wonder if I want to oblige Adrian in this or not.

"I'm told everyone should have a hobby," I say, in a cheery imitation of Yuliang's favorite tones. "Yours is...dramatic timing?"

That doesn't derail the incipient argument, but at least the argument has to pause a moment before continuing along. "My hobbies don't take precedent over getting the job done," Adrian says. "Is that the skill set you're bringing to the company? Distraction?" His look up and down this vessel is quite pointed. "Anything else?"

He is bound and determined to have this fight. If I thought it'd get me anything, I might give in to the opportunity. But there is no _win_ in arguing over my value to the company with someone that much my senior in it.

"Nope," I say. "As far as I know, that's it." I turn my back on him to try to find my clothes. Some of them are still on the bed, but not the right ones to start with. Maybe I'll skip the whole underwear step; Zabina's the one who insists it's a necessary part of an outfit, even if no one's going to see it. (The only people who see that clothing on me, to date, are people who don't intend to stop at that point.) I do track down a pair of pants that I'm pretty sure are mine. "So what's in Portland?"

"Work," Adrian says. "You may have heard of it before. In passing, perhaps?"

He can pose like an Impudite. Whatever the natural posture of the host he's inhabiting, his current one is the sort you'd see in movies, when the arrogant rich man, bound to fall in love with the plucky working class heroine, sneers at someone who has failed to meet his standards. 

Fortunately, I'm not all that plucky. I pull on my pants with a little difficulty. A shower first would have been a better idea, but Yuliang is having aggressive conversations with a whole set of people in the bathroom, so I get to dress while sticky. "I believe someone implied I might be given some, eventually."

"Bored?" Adrian asks. I misstepped on that last answer.

I pull on the first shirt I pick up that's reasonably opaque and made of a solid material. "Far be it from me," I say, steadily rather than sweetly, "to question the orders I've been given." And if he wants to go be rude to Zabina, I'd like to see him _try_. She put up with a month of Yuliang competing with her; I think she could stare down a Duke.

"Yuliang gives so many of those." He has his back to the bathroom door, and if she's not afraid of him, it's true that he's not afraid of her, either. Despite the distinction he has and she doesn't, I'm inclined to think they're equals within the company's social structure.

I'm dressed enough, and there's no option for walking away from this conversation. (Skipping back to my Heart is technically an option, but I'm not up for finding out what the social consequences of that are. Nothing good.) I curl my knees up to my chest, and layer arms on top, then my chin over that. Defensive, I suppose, but not a retreat. "Gosh, Adrian, I'm not very good at following some things, but are you trying to proposition me? It's easier to just ask."

His face goes through a subtle, fascinating change that I should probably be less sanguine about. But, hell. I might as well find out what a Knight in the company who obviously doesn't like me _can_ do to express that dislike.

The bathroom door slams open. Yuliang flings the passport back at Adrian; he snaps it out of the air one-handed. "There," she says. "You are _clear_. I still recommend LAX, but if you run into trouble, it won't be from the uninformed mortal side. Now do you want to join in or get out?"

"I _want_ ," Adrian says, all acid precision, "the job to be done. On time and well."

"Don't we _all_ , but some of us can do it without screwing everyone else's schedules." Yuliang smiles sweetly. None of us are fooled, or meant to be. "Try screwing something else. Maybe you'd be a little cheerier."

He leaves without dignifying her comment with a response. Probably his best move available. 

Yuliang snorts at the closed door. "Bless, he is _such_ an asshole sometimes."

"There are times he isn't?" Okay. I could've phrased that better. But she's amused by the question, as near as I can tell.

"Sure, there are...well." Less amused, now. "There were. Never mind him. He has some issues."

"Don't we all?" I leave the bed, as long as I'm already dressed. "Did he start out in Lust?"

"Oh! No." Yuliang slips an arm around me, tugs me back down. I'm amenable to this suggestion too. "His issues mostly aren't _that_ sort. He goes for the easy targets, and doesn't know you well enough to be very accurate. He'll be nastier the next time you meet him, I expect. If it gets too bad, try to disengage and claim you have work to do."

"I've dealt with worse." And it's probably impolite to press, but Yuliang isn't the sort of person to hold impolite questions against a person. Not that I've discovered so far. "Where did he come from?"

"Some people in the company are actually from Theft all the way back," Yuliang says. "...maybe not many. He's from Stone, but he's not touchy about it at all, and if you try to use it against him in an argument he will eat you _alive_ , Lee, so I'd stay off the topic."

When she goes so far as to warn me, I'm going to listen. "Just curious. Yuliang, _am_ I getting in the way of your work?"

"Not in the slightest." She plucks at the hem of the shirt I'm wearing. "I should mail you clothes. Everything Zee picks out for you is so stuffy. Even the casual outfits are the boring kind of casual. Like you need to watch your reputation around gossipy neighbors."

More like I need to watch my reputation around gossipy coworkers. "This isn't my shirt, anyway. It's yours."

"Is not," Yuliang says promptly, and actually pulls away to look it over from a better vantage point. "I wouldn't wear anything like that."

"Well, it's too tight to be Baolan's, and I didn't bring it here. One of your guests?"

Yuliang frowns. "I wouldn't bring home anyone wearing that, though. It's terrible."

I honestly can't tell the categorical difference between this one and several I've seen her wear. "One of Guo's hosts?"

"Maybe," she says, still dubious. "Not really the type he picks, though."

"Well, it's either that or someone is breaking into your apartment while you're out to add _more_ clothing to the piles."

Yuliang's quiet for a moment.

"Plausible," she concludes. "But I'm not keeping _that_ shirt, and you shouldn't, either. Zee would get _entirely_ the wrong idea."

I'd just as soon we leave fashion, and inconvenient visitors, entirely behind. I'm due back at Zabina's place in less than six hours. I shrug my shoulders, and let the shirt fall off me in threads. "Better?"

"Oh, much."


	20. An Interlude, In Which My Friends Chat

Lanthano dragged Eun away from the pot. "Like you don't have your own box," he said, and draped the cat over his shoulder, nudging the plant back towards the wall with his foot. "And your own scratching posts, toys, that mouse thing. Isn't that enough? You need to eat my plants, too?"

Eun dug affectionate claws into his back, and started purring. That was the way of cats. All affection and the price paid for it. A demon could appreciate the simple honesty of it at times.

"Spoiled," Lanthano said, and wandered over to the desk to check email. Company and mundane email sorted itself into different folders, and there was nothing new in the former, too much junk in the latter. Which was nothing he didn't expect, really. Work always came in waves, and this was a lull. Spend most of a week trying to stitch someone back together before they could collapse entirely, and then a month or two or eventually three without word.

Not the right words, anyway.

He sat down, and detached the cat from his shoulder, despite the fussy noises it made. "You," he said, "should go destroy something bought for the express purpose of you destroying it, and let me get some work done."

Eun settled onto his lap instead, pricking claws into his thighs now instead of his shoulder. So at least someone was happy.

His phone range. No number he recognized. Better than even odds that it was spam. He gave it two rings, then tapped it on. "Hello?"

"Hello," said a voice he did not recognize, though it had a faint ring of familiarity. Maybe only because the man on the other end was speaking in English already. "This is the right number for Lanthano, isn't it?"

That was not the sort of name that was supposed to be associated with this phone number at the same time as an unknown caller. Except from someone who knew him well enough to not have to _ask_. If one of the Shedim called, they'd identify themselves, if only by saying something innocuous with the right words seeded in while listeners caught nothing.

The wrong sort of person had acquired his phone number. Which was not terribly secure in some ways, but neither was it passed out on business cards like the one attached to his Role. Lanthano pulled up the appropriate monitoring app, and made sure he was recording, while he said, "Who is this?"

"Oh, my name's Ash. Never mind that. Are you Lanthano, or aren't you?"

And _now_ he certainly remembered the voice, which he'd never spoken with himself, but heard a few recordings of. Young, pushy, and full of the blithe certainty of its own rightness... Yes, _that_ voice. The confirmation of identity didn't make him much less uneasy. It was all very well to narrow the contact down to another demon--and not one from the wrong sort of Word--but he couldn't think of any good reasons for the contact, and could come up with a few bad ones.

None of which he could confirm without further information. "Yes," he said, "I am. Was there something you needed?" Maybe not the most polite question to ask a Lilim, but if the Lilim was going to bother him first, civility could slide a little.

"Always," said the Lilim, now in Helltongue. "Basic fact of life, that, so never mind it. Do you know where Leo is? Lately, not right this minute, though the latter would be nice too."

Lanthano took a spare stylus from his desk to spin between his fingers. "Why are you asking me?" He could speak as lightly as anyone on the spur of a moment, and this odd little acquaintance of the Calabite should be able to pick up on the more important, unstated part of that question. _And why should I tell you anything?_

"Because the list of his friends is short, and the ones it's safe to contact make for an even shorter list, which puts _you_ , some Impudite he met less than a year ago, second on the list," Ash said, in a sunny tone that was no doubt exactly as sincere as Lanthano's. Excellent skill with projecting it, though. One had to admire the poise. "Do you know anything useful?"

"I know," Lanthano said, "that you're in the business of selling information." He flicked the stylus into the air, and caught it again on the way down. A pity that the only person in the room to watch wasn't impressed by this sort of thing. "And here you are asking me to give you some for free."

"So you do know," Ash said.

"Confirmation that I don't know is also information," Lanthano said, not so quickly as to sound defensive. It was defensive, and he refused to be the one backing away in this conversation. "What has you asking to begin with?"

"The part where he dropped out of contact wasn't wildly unusual," the Lilim said. A peculiar sound in the background of the call slowly made sense as it changed and was clearly an operating espresso machine. Which...did rather fit what little Leo had told him about this one. "That he's not with his partner anymore? Unusual. Oh, or the part where that fucking Djinn showed up at my apartment to be annoying! Definitely not usual."

"Plenty of things could do that," Lanthano said.

"Sure. The obvious ones I've already checked on. Now I'm working down the list of less obvious ones, which brings us back to the part where I'm calling you."

"What were the obvious ones?" Lanthano asked, as much out of actual curiosity as in an attempt to stall while he worked out how much he _could_ say. Or wanted to. Maybe how much he could charge for what it was safe to pass along. It wasn't as if taking on a new employee was a secret. It simply wasn't the sort of thing one announced loudly, either.

"You know. Picked up by the Game, ran Renegade _again_ , stuck in Trauma, some--other stuff, whatever, beside the point." There was a hidden option there, and not hidden well, near enough to the Lilim's mind to worry him.

Lanthano missed the stylus on its next descent, and earned an irritated claw-flex from Eun, who'd been hit by it. The Lilim was _worried_. Which cast a new light on the questions, and ought not change his set of available responses. Not when it was only hypothesis on his part. Hypothesis wasn't fact.

"The point," Lanthano said, "is that I'm not about to hand out information for free to someone who will sell it to anyone. What kind of deal is that?"

"A sucker's deal," Ash said. "Tell you what, Lanthano. I'll promise not to put anything you tell me in this conversation into company files, officially or unofficially, until I pick up the same information from someone else, if you'll give me the truth of what you know on Leo's current...status. Generally. Does that sound fair?"

"Yes," Lanthano said, "but without a lawyer at hand, I'm not sure it does more than _sound_ fair."

"I could drive a truck through some of the loopholes," Ash said cheerfully. "And so could you. 'Generally' gives you a lot of flex. Want to make it a deal?"

Lanthano brushed his fingertips along the fur at Eun's spine. "Between you and me, Tempter, I wouldn't mind. But taking on Geases without prior authorization is against company policy. Give me a few weeks to file the appropriate request forms, maybe I can help you."

The pause on the other end of the line included sounds of coffee preparation. Some kind of misto, if Lanthano had to put a name on it.

"Look," said the Lilim finally, "I swear by my nature that whatever you tell me here and now, I'm not putting it into the records of anyone I work for. It's strictly personal business. What happened to Leo?"

Lanthano blinked a few times. The cat yawned on his lap.

"Leo's working for the Marquis," he said. "He's fine, he's just busy. Is that Djinn still attuned?"

"I can't see him being this obsessive if he wasn't," Ash said. "Right? I don't really get Djinn, so you tell me. But when he came to bother me, he wasn't asking _where_ anyone is, so that's a hint. What kind of busy? And what kind of fine?"

"Busy learning how to do a new job. The kind of fine that he wasn't when we got him."

"And that's all you're going to give me, isn't it."

"Mmhmm."

"I'll take it," Ash said. "Tell him to call. Or write. Send a telegram, engrave some pictograms, whatever. Assuming he's still allowed."

"I'll tell him you checked in," Lanthano said, and was not sure to what degree that was true. He could say it convincingly, and figure out the details later.

"Thanks. Mm. I owe you one. Unofficially." The call switched off.

Lanthano stared at the phone, bemused, for half a second longer. Then set it aside, and began composing an email to Zabina.


	21. In Which I Discuss Clarity Of Emotional Bonds With A Friend

Zabina has an instructional style of the kind that my college classmates liked to call "sadistic", which was a laughable description of anything the human instructors did in that place. Pop quizzes and increasing the difficulty of the material if it's proving easy isn't sadistic, it's just _challenging_. But I still find myself a little irate that after the visit to Yuliang, Zabina starts demanding more of me in the quizzes on Mandarin. Even though it's not the most common language spoken in Shanghai. Apparently I was supposed to be practicing it with Yuliang in my spare time?

As such, when we end one morning's breakfast, and she takes out a folded piece of paper, I am entirely prepared for a new round of linguistic difficulty. Maybe now I'll have to construct proper sentences in Mandarin before I'm allowed to use the shower.

"You might arrange a meeting back at the office," she says, rising from the table. She sets the paper on the table between us. "As it pleases you; that's not an order. I'll see you at dinner."

The paper is a printout of an email. Zabina is never out of reach of her phone, seldom out of reach of her laptop, and she has printed an email out on actual paper rather than forwarding it to me. It's almost as if she's noticed that I'm not a big fan of using my laptop. 

It crashes or freezes up after about an hour of use, now. Down from the three hours of use it could hold out for last month. I expect I'll need a new one soon.

The email has been written in French. I leave the breakfast things for Giovanna to clean up, as I see no reason to offer her help if she's never going to ask for any, and go back to my room in search of my dictionary.

It's really my room, more or less. Other people don't walk into it without permission. And it contains some things I like. But it's still in Zabina's house, filled with the clothes she picked out for me and the books she believes I should be reading. I'm in an eternal in-between state here, a student who's not quite treated like a child but certainly not given any real independence.

Most days, I think it's better than where I was before.

It's not a _difficult_ email to translate. Slightly cryptic in places, as internal company communication often is when it's about matters one prefers not to make explicit in recorded media sent with only moderate encryption through the internet. Once I have all the sentences worked out, I have to pick through the oblique references to work out who's being referred to in each instance.

Ash called Lanthano?

I don't know which half of that question surprises me more.

Ash called Lanthano about me, and Lanthano wrote Zabina an email to explain the situation, and Zabina believes...that I should meet up with Lanthano. Except she can't mean that I should do that for reasons of company security, or it would be instruction, not suggestion. She doesn't give a lot of suggestions.

There's about a quarter of me that wants to not pursue this an inch further, just to see what would happen. Or to prove a point. But it's a stupid, adolescent point to be proving, and this is not the place where I want to spend whatever credit I've earned with her. And the quarter of me that doesn't want to pursue this because there are conversations I don't know how to have--well. That's less adolescent, and more cowardly. Sometimes it's more comfortable to leave things uncertain than to confirm them the wrong way.

But lack of information isn't useful for anything but peace of mind, and what good does that do anyone?

I coax my laptop into coughing up the right program for email, and send Lanthano a note. (In English. I have my limits, and French composition is not a strong point yet.) Re: that phone call, let's talk about it back at the office, when's a good time? It's painfully impersonal. Which is probably what it should be. This is more or less company business, and employee interaction, and...hell. I don't know anymore.

Between Regan and Zhune, I've never been very good at keeping a bright clear line between the professional and the personal in working relationships.

Lanthano gets back to me with a suggested time (two hours from now) and place (his office) before the laptop crashes, so that's something.

#

Dropping into the Heart room in the Marquis's territory still feels odd. The overlapping sense of _home_ radiating from my Heart fights against the unfamiliarity of the location and the inescapable sense that I'm in someone else's territory. Which is _always_ true, anywhere in Hell, was true even back in the labyrinthine caves where my Heart used to sit, but that was...impersonal. The possession and storage facility of my Prince, who didn't have much reason to care about me, or my comings and goings, so long as I kept doing what I was told.

The Marquis has high enough rank that our relationship ought to be just as distant and abstract, but I don't know how it can be, when everyone in this company seems half in love with her. (More than half, in some cases. Or Zabina seems to just outright respect her, which I think means more from that Lilim than actual love ever would.) So long as the very thought of being around her makes me nervous, I feel like I don't belong here, and like I'm treading on potentially hostile ground. I don't know how to change that. I don't know that there's a way to change that, without bringing in some useful mind-fucking resonances to shove my psyche in another direction.

But the Marquis doesn't hire Balseraphs or Habbalah, and Impudites can't make you feel particularly loyal to anyone but them. So that's almost like being safe.

A few people nod to me in the hallways as I find my way over to Lanthano's door. Mostly damned souls, who know how to look properly deferential to any demon at a two-meter distance without slowing their stride, but also from that demonling intern who works for the IT department (which consists of one other person, who I still haven't met), and an Impudite I only identify three steps after I've nodded back and we've passed. (Shri, who does not look much at all like her vessel, but wears a very similar coat; besides, she stuffs her hands into those pockets the exact same way as she does on the corporeal.) Whether or not I belong here, other people are inclined to accept me for the moment, on some sort of provisional basis.

It's like being a transplanted organ. If the transplant gets rejected, it's a problem for them, but an awful lot more of a problem for me. We all rather hope it goes well.

I rap on Lanthano's door, and shove my hands in my own pockets. In a completely different way than Shri puts her hands in _her_ pockets, and one of these days I'll sit down with some of these very social Impudites and find out why so many of them don't notice these things. Especially with all these Shedim running around. You'd think they'd start paying attention to how to track people.

Lanthano opens the door, and _oh_ I do not like how unreadable he is right now. "Come on in," he says, easy as ever. "Want anything to drink?"

"No, I'm fine." And yet I end up sort of hovering near the closed door while he pokes through his fridge for his own drink.

"That Lilim seemed honestly worried about you," Lanthano says, while his back's still to me, voice muffled by having his head halfway into the fridge. "A good friend?"

"I don't know. It's hard to rate those things." At least around other demons, who always have themselves first. I've loved a few demons, or been in love with them, I don't know how to split the two apart, and yet that's never stopped me from saving myself instead of them. Or throwing myself into danger for them, now and again. Love among demons makes no sense at all and I don't try to understand it. Maybe it's easier to think of just _liking_ someone, the way I like cigarettes or fast cars with great handling or the view at three in the morning from atop a few civic buildings in the city near home. "We sort of had a book club thing going for a while."

"What happened to that?" Lanthano asks. He drops down onto the futon, not the chair at his desk, with a beer in hand. "It can't be that you ran out of books."

"I started working here. Didn't seem like a good idea to log into that old account anymore, given how insecure it is."

"And Zabina does think very highly of company security," Lanthano says, wry for a moment. "Bless it, Leo, would you sit down? You look like you're thinking of breaking through the door to make a run for it."

"Do not," I say, and end up grabbing the desk chair myself. "Besides, I wouldn't take out your door. That's company property. Someone would get annoyed."

"And that's the only thing that keeps you from bolting?"

"Also, I'm not sure I know how to find an exit that isn't trapped." I'm seated at a cross-angle on the chair, and damn but I know what my own body language is saying. "There's the way we came in, but I don't have codes for any of those locks, and again, bad idea to destroy company property. So I'd just end up trapped in an employee lounge, pretending to be a barista."

"Terrible fate, that." Lanthano smiles at me, a crooked expression I recognize as one of my own. "So, Leo. Why _didn't_ you tell that Lilim where you were and what you were doing?"

"I wasn't sure I was allowed to."

"But no one told you not to. So if you're not sure, why not ask?"

I shrug, and wish I'd taken that offer of a drink. "I didn't think of it."

Lanthano hooks his arms across the back of the futon. "From some people, I'd believe that. From Guo? I would entirely believe that. But you're not stupid; you're just a good liar. You don't have to tell me, if you'd rather not. But I'd prefer to know."

He's cheating, here. It's entirely unfair for him to appeal to friendship and integrity when it's between two demons, and damned if it's not working on me anyway. I end up staring at the floor. "If I don't ask, and no one's said _no_ , then if I decide it's important, I get one shot at it. With a good excuse that I didn't know I couldn't." And, what the heck, that's two thirds of the answer, but I might as well be candid. See if it's a good idea or not. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that the email account I used to write him from is still being monitored by Judgment, and I didn't want to explain that to Zabina when talking computer security issues. So I didn't touch it, and... I figured I'd get around to it eventually."

Lanthano blinks. "Judgment? Really?"

"About a sixty percent chance. Long story. It never mattered when we were just talking book club stuff. If some angel is stuck reading email exchanges where we argue over Jane Eyre for three weeks, I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it." I scrub at my hair and hit one of these damn horns. It's a good thing I'm not required to do much fancy physical work in Stygia; between wings and horns, my balance is all off. "So, yes, I probably should've asked about it, and given him a call, instead of disappearing so long that he started to worry. And why the fuck didn't you call, either?"

His entire expression flattens. "Why didn't you?"

"Because you show up to stitch me back together, and then you _leave_ again, and how am I supposed to read that, Lanthano? Isn't putting me back together just your job?"

"You shouldn't ask questions like that," he says. "You won't like any answer I give to it."

"Try one."

Lanthano snorts. Gracefully and elegantly, because, well, Impudite. "Sometimes, you--" He shakes his head. "Fine. Yes, putting you back together is my job. Yes, I would do that for anyone the Marquis asked me to help. Are you any happier now that I've said that?"

"Better informed, I guess."

Lanthano stands up, and crosses over to sit in my lap. "I _like_ you," he says. "You idiot. That what I'd like to do sometimes overlaps with my job is a _feature_ , not an invalidation of my own preferences." His face is six inches from mine, and it's no accident that this makes it very hard to focus on anything other than him. "I can fake liking people if I have to. Impudite. But it's a lousy long-term solution with people I'm going to be running into a lot, like those _in the company_."

"You get along with everyone."

"Sure. Doesn't mean I like them. I like you." His smile's wry and personal and entirely unfair. I'm no good at fighting off this kind of charm, where I'd put some real effort into resisting his resonance. "Why should I lie?"

"Why didn't you call?"

Lanthano's quiet for a moment. Putting together an answer I'll accept, and that's going to be a neat trick at this point. "Because," he says, "Chaixin told me to back off."

And that must be true, because I can't imagine him lying about the Marquis's orders. "Okay."

He sits back slightly. "Okay? No 'why' or 'for how long' or anything?"

"If I started asking _why_ people of higher rank than me made their decisions, I'd just run into trouble. I don't make a habit of it."

"Really."

"You know the part where I broke my Heart and ran Renegade instead of dealing with being part of the War and its command structure? That was sort of the high point of where I was willing to question command decisions. I've sworn off that. It's bad for my health."

"You are an amazingly frustrating man, at times," Lanthano says. He kisses me between the eyes. "It's a good thing I find that endearing. Are you still upset about the calling thing?"

Maybe a little. "Of course not."

He does not look entirely convinced. "If I make sure you have my number, will you call? Or write? Maybe stop by for a visit? If Zabina's willing to let you visit Yuliang, she can spare me a few days of your time too."

"How about you invite me, and find out?"

"Now you're just being difficult," he says, and grins. He looks so much the same in this form as he does in his vessel, but his teeth are much sharper. "This week's terrible, and Zabina doesn't like last-minute surprises. I'll ask her _nicely_ about next week, and see what happens."

"Any guesses?"

He slides his hands over my shoulders, laces them behind my neck. "I'm pretty sure she'll say yes. And then you'll come visit."

"Unless I don't."

"You will," he says. "Even if you're terrible about remembering to send email or any other form of communication, you still like me."

I rest my hands on his thighs, and wonder if maybe this is a good time to move to a more comfortable surface than this desk chair. "How can you be sure?"

"How could you not like me?" Lanthano's smile is all sweetness and light. "I'm just that great."


	22. In Which I Tell The Truth

There's good news and bad news for the day.

The good news is that in about an hour I wander over to Lanthano's office to drink his beer and page through one of my books that's still in that room, while I wait for him to stop by and pick me up. At which point I'm spending a solid four days in Seoul and the surrounding area, meeting his cat and boyfriend and some Korean coworkers who I haven't properly met yet. For once, Zabina couldn't use this as an excuse to tell me to work on my Mandarin--well, she could have, as every demon involved in this trip speaks it perfectly, except for me, but she didn't--and just told me to keep working on my French conjugations. The imperfect subjunctive and I are not getting along too well yet.

The bad news is that I have an appointment with the Marquis in approximately two minutes, and I don't know why.

There is an argument to be made--Lanthano made a stab at it, though I wouldn't let that discussion turn into an actual argument--that I should pay attention to _why_ the Marquis tells me to do things. Or tells other people to do things which relate to me in some way. He's taken the stance that he's not about to explain until I admit I want to know, and I'm of the opinion that knowing wouldn't help anything. To date, doing what the Marquis tells me without asking a lot of nitpicky follow-up questions has worked just fine, and I don't see any reason to mess with that process.

Besides, he can get away with more of those sorts of questions than I can. He's one of her favorites. Even Guo knows that.

Essence drops into me with a command to present myself that's a single word in Helltongue and doesn't translate well into English. It's not impolite, but there's an implied hierarchy there. I peel myself off the wall I've been slouching against, trying to look nonchalant and as if I belong there, and walk into the Marquis's office.

I sit where I'm pointed. It's more comfortable than standing at attention.

"How have you taken to your new position?" Chaixin asks, when she turns her eyes to me. She is not one for a lot of preliminaries in conversations.

"I'm not having any real trouble with it," I say.

"Don't equivocate," she says. "I don't ask trick questions, but I expect the truth. Do you find Zabina acceptable as your supervisor?"

"Yes?" Even I don't like the rise in my voice when I answer that one. It's exactly the sort of question I would usually know there's no good way to answer, even by giving the obvious answer that the person asking it presumably wants.

"Elaborate, Leo."

Well, she's never so much as slapped me, and she doesn't make unreasonable requests just to watch me fail, and when I go visit authorized fellow employees for a few days she seems pretty okay with it, and even if she does make me wear clothing I don't like she's willing to let me avoid wearing the clothing I hate, so what kind of complaints could I have? That's not the way to put it. "I find that what she asks me to do, I'm capable of. Or she's willing to listen if I don't think I am. She clearly knows the territory and her own work, so I'm not caught up in trying to do that for her, either. And on a, uh, personal compatibility sort of level, I'd rather work with her than most of the supervisors I've had."

"You've had terrible supervisors," Chaixin says, and does not seem to be looking for a response to that. "Would you prefer to continue working under her indefinitely?"

Compared to what? Working for _Adrian_? Or being stuck here in Stygia, running errands for Captain Dio? I'm pretty sure working independently isn't any kind of option, and even if it were, it wouldn't be safe. "Yes, I would." I'm supposed to elaborate again, judging by her silence. "Though I don't know the alternatives."

"Yuliang asked for more help," Chaixin says, in a perfectly neutral voice. And this time I don't need the question to be made explicit.

"I'd be happy to work for her as backup whenever she needs it, if I have the right skills for the job. Or on a single run against a target. But her long-term specialty is more social than I'm set up to support usefully, and I don't think it would go very well if I was under her constant supervision. Especially as she's already busy with Guo." And I'd be second-guessing her raising of him, and interfering, and, oh, I do not see that ending in happiness and hugs all around.

"We'll leave you with Zabina. Expect more work in the future." The Marquis drums her fingers on the desk, and her eyes are sharp enough to unnerve me, not that I had a lot of nerve built up for this conversation to start with. "Before assigning it properly, it is necessary to know your previous experiences."

"I. Um. Figured you had the files on that already." And probably some more details on top of that from our mutual Boss, unless it amused him to let her go without, or he didn't think it was necessary to explain the details.

"I have a variety of files on you. Sometimes they even agree." She lays her fingers flat against the sleek wood of her desk, which I would rather contemplate than look her in the eyes. "I will not hold any of your past against you, so long as you don't try to conceal it from me."

This conversation is about to go to some places I would rather it not. This is inevitable and inescapable, because as is so often the case, resonating a hole in the wall and running away wouldn't actually help. "There are." This is painful to even say. "A few things. That I can't talk about."

"Whatever the secrecy set on you by our Lord, you may still tell me."

She can't know. Can she? But she has to suspect. Pieces, anyway. "I mean. There are a few things I can't talk about because I signed some Divine Contracts, and I don't actually know what happens if I break those while I'm not in a vessel, but it's... I just. I don't know what would happen. They were clear on the point where it would throw me into Trauma if I did that on the corporeal."

She can make me break those contracts. I'm a company asset, and she can decide that the information is worth enough to spend whatever I'm worth, whether it's a matter of putting me out of commission for a while, with a vessel or two lost, or outright destroying me. I don't know how to downplay the importance of what those contracts covered. None of it could possibly matter to her, probably not even to War at this point, with years having passed and that damn Mercurian all so willing to write me off. Old intel. Useless. But the contracts didn't come with a time limit built in, and back when I was signing them, I didn't think I'd live this long anyway.

And right now she is giving me a long and narrow look that makes the useless "blast a hole in the wall and flee" plan sound better and better at every passing second.

"Very well," she says at last, and I don't think she means that literally. "Tell me what you safely can about those contracts."

"I picked them up between when I left the War and joined Theft." The official timeline puts that at two weeks. I don't think she's under the impression that I did a sudden massive burst of contract-bound negotiation with angels during a two-week stretch. "They cover...things I did. That I can't talk about. There's one big one that will definitely kill me if I talk about it. Four smaller ones that might, depending on the vessel I'm wearing. I was, um, in the dark on the details a lot of the time, as to what my actions were aimed at, beyond the very general. So far as I know, none of them are relevant to Theft in particular. One of them's only--" My chest feels tight and prickly as I wander too close to certain bounds of the contract. "--it's really definitely not about Theft."

I swear to god, the Marquis sighs. Faintly, but there it is. Like she's dealing with an annoying complication in her life when she's already pretty busy, and that's probably the truth of it there. "If you again encounter any aspect of what those contracts covered, you will inform me, should you be able to safely. You will inform me if anything from those 'actions' seems directly hazardous to the security of the company, despite the personal hazard. Do you understand?"

"Yes." So we're solid there. Lovely. At least I'm not expected to sacrifice myself on any minor points of information.

"What did you do in the two years you were Renegade?"

In a way, it's reassuring to know that she's not setting up traps for me to fall into by lying. She's not pretending to believe that I was only out of the fold for a few weeks, to see if I'll lie about that. But that also means she knows enough that I can't safely elide...well. Anything. Hell.

"I spent a lot of time trying to avoid the Game. Most of it was dull, when I wasn't terrified. Sometimes I spent time with other people who weren't approved of by either side of the War. Sometimes I did, uh, things that contracts covered. I took some jobs for Free Lilim, once in a while. A Lilim who I owed a Geas to called it in, and I blew up a building that belonged to the Game--not a Tether, just a law office--then got sold out by the arms dealer I was working with, so that seemed like a really good time to put some more space between me and them. So I went to the Marches for a while. Then I came back, and had a fight with my ex from the War, and the Boss recruited me." There. That's a reasonably complete summary. She can ask for details on whatever she cares about in there, and it's...truthful. Essentially.

"What sort of other people?" Chaixin asks. That's one of those questions I was hoping wouldn't come up. But then, I think any possible clarifying question would be one I don't want to answer.

I wonder how long she's going to keep me here. My life can't be that damn interesting. Though it is, I suppose, full of potential security problems. Fuck it all, I don't know how to work around that.

"This one Outcast. A Kyriotate of the Sword who disagreed with her orders." It always feels a bit like betrayal to even talk about Nik, who got clingy and fussy whenever I so much as chatted with a Lilim. She didn't like demons, after all. Just me. "She went off to a Flowers Tether to work off dissonance, right before I left for the Marches. I haven't had any contact with her since." Is it vital to security to mention that I sent her there, or sprang Judgment on her? No. It is not. And I am telling the truth. Even Penny couldn't object much. (He's not relevant. There's no reason for the Marquis to ask about him.) "And an ethereal that I sort of rescued from Nightmares. It stayed behind in the Marches when I left."

"Why did you leave the Marches?"

There's not a gram of accusation in any question she's asked yet, and I'm still fighting against the urge to curl up in a defensive ball. Maybe this would be more comfortable if I were standing. Too many flashbacks to questions Althea used to ask me. About such minor things that I can't even remember the details, and always with such penalties when I didn't give the right answer. There was never a right answer.

"There was this kid. Human, I mean. Who I used to haul around as part of my Role, when I was working for the War. When I ran Renegade, I left her with a bunch of angels. It was--this whole mess. I sold out the War entirely, as a way to get them off my back and get out clean. So the Balseraph I used to work with kidnapped the kid from the angels, as a way to get back at me." There is no way to put a positive spin on _any_ of this. Not the betrayal and not the weakness for something no demon should care about. Maybe an Impudite could get away with that kind of wanting to protect a human, to say that one belongs to them and everyone else should keep hands off, but I'm a fucking Calabite. We're not supposed to do that.

Try as I might, I can't stop being off factory specs.

But as some small mercy she doesn't ask _why_ I ran after Katherine, not yet. Maybe it's enough that someone stole what was mine, and Theft can understand taking that personally. We run into people having issues with that all the time. "When you sold out the War, what part of Heaven did you work with?"

That question is not much more comfortable.

"Trade." Please don't ask about Trade. Please assume that this is why all the Divine Contracts, and leave it be. "And Flowers. I interacted briefly with Stone, but they didn't want the help anyway. I lost that vessel after I joined Theft, so most of them couldn't trace me by the current ones."

"Most."

"There was. A thing. After that incident with the Cherub, where, uh..."

"I recall the incident with the Cherub," Chaixin says, and flicks me a go on gesture. Thus I'm absolved of having to recap the incident with the Cherub of Judgment. I don't even want to think about it.

"One of the Traders that I ran into during the first thing. And a few times later." Because of Divine Contracts, for the most part, so it's not even deceptive for me to imply I only interacted with him for those, is it? Well. Not very deceptive. I'm going to get a headache if I keep wondering what Penny would think of my explanations here. "He sent a note, through Theft. And my partner said that we should respond."

"What a terrible idea," Chaixin murmurs.

"Yes!" I pause before I let myself start getting noisy, or into unwise territory. "That was my impression, too. My partner thought it was fun to taunt angels. So we met up, and some asshole Mercurian of War shot my partner, so I ended up hiding out with the Trader briefly, and then there was this whole thing with someone from Death trying to let out a plague--I'm still not entirely sure on the details there, but I ran off and stopped that, and I haven't seen that Trader since. But he has seen the vessel that I use for my Role. Not the other one. So far as I'm aware, the only time an angel saw it, she thought I was a Mercurian."

There is a slight pause from across the desk. I'm not sure how much sense this story makes when abbreviated to this extent. Or maybe I'm just corroborating what she already knows. (Just don't ask about Penny. He's not relevant here.)

"Why?" Chaixin asks. And at my hesitation, she clarifies, "The angel who believed you to be a Mercurian."

"Oh! I ran into her by accident while I was tracking some disturbance near a place we were hiding out, and she'd just finished killing the Vapulan we were supposed to hand tech over to. So I helped her hide the body and played up the helpful angel who doesn't do combat himself kind of thing. Then, uh, I ran into her again a few days later, but you know about that job. The one I did for you. I was in the other vessel at the time, and I'm pretty sure she never put the two together. Ofanite, so she didn't have a way of working it out by resonance."

I am increasingly unable to decipher the looks that Chaixin is giving me.

"What happened to the human child you retrieved?"

An uncomfortable topic, but there's a safe answer for that one. "I kept her with me for a while, but my partner didn't like having her around, so I sent her off somewhere else again."

"Back to the angels?"

I was wrong. There is not a safe answer for that one. "Sort of?"

Okay. A clear look, that time. There is such a thing as a wrong answer, here.

"I ditched her at a Tether of Judgment," I say, "because it seemed like the least likely place where my partner or ex or anyone else who wanted to use her against me could get at her. Except for Judgment, I guess, but that was before the Cherub thing, so I didn't think at the time that they'd have any reason to be interested in me personally."

"Have they attempted to use her against you?"

"No," I say. "I haven't had any contact with her since." There was a letter sent, but I didn't read it. Safer for everyone that way.

Chaixin tilts her head slightly. Examining me from another angle. "Would you like to get her back?" she asks.

That was not a question about my opinion. That was an _offer_.

For an instant, I cannot breathe. There are things I want and cannot have, that I have assigned to the category of impossible for so long, that there has never been a reason to think of otherwise and--no. Oh, no, no, no. I can't start moving things out of that list. It's not safe, in a thousand ways. I'll end up wanting everything that's there.

"It's been years," I say, as steadily as I can. "I don't think she'd appreciate it. And I'd rather not annoy Judgment personally. Again. Even if we knew where to find her."

"We could find her," Chaixin says, and shrugs one shoulder. "We annoy many people." There's a hint of pride in that statement which I would appreciate more if my chest and throat didn't hurt so much right this minute.

Captain Savas always left me coughing up blood, but this Calabite knows how to hit me in the heart, instead. No wonder she's a Marquis. No wonder these people adore her.

"It wouldn't be the same," I manage. I want to kick apart a piece of furniture, or maybe cry on someone's shoulder. This is not the place for either.

She dismisses the matter with another one of those move-ahead gestures. Which is, I suppose, kind of her. Maybe I should be grateful that she doesn't want to break me without good reason.

"Tell me about the Trader who contacted you," she says. I am running out of appropriate profanity.

"He's a Seraph. He sent me a second note, once. I don't exactly write back. And I didn't tell my partner about the second one, so that didn't turn into any sort of meeting." Even I can learn from my mistakes, once in a while.

"That isn't all."

Not a question. There's no way out of this room, or this conversation. "He promised that he wouldn't pull me in. Towards his side. Not against my will, and I have always said _no_ when he offered, because--for all sorts of reasons." I came here instead. Shouldn't that be enough to prove something to her? Can't we stop here?

She's silent, because, no. We can't stop here. It's never that easy.

"I called him, twice, about dealing with some fallout from what happened when I went to Shal-Mari. He covered for me on some of that. It was--I don't know, a weird conversation, my partner got involved in the second one and I didn't hear half of it. Got nailed down in a Tether of War, once, and the Seraph got me out of there with all body parts attached. It's a good thing he's a Seraph and not a Lilim, or I would _owe_ him." I stare at my hands on my knees. My wings flat against my back, like that might protect me. "When that Trader talked to me in Seattle--it was one of his friends. She's not, uh, much of a fan of that kind of contact. I haven't said a thing in that direction or heard from the same since I called you."

I suspect he's always been aware of the irony, in my lying to protect him. To protect myself for having done anything with him. He's a Seraph who does work on the corporeal, and who oversees contracts where we all agree not to tell the truth about what happened. He couldn't be unaware.

So I wonder if he'd be disappointed in me now, or not, for telling the actual truth as best I know it. (He would be the first to point out that _as best I know it_ has only moderate overlap with the truth itself.)

The Marquis taps out two bars of that finger-drumming sequence. Easier to watch her hands than her face, and about as informative. "Could you bring him in?"

A proper and loyal employee would give this question serious thought. Maybe I'm not a very good employee yet. Maybe I am more interested in not thinking about what would hurt me to tink about than I am in being the best sort of employee. One of my thumbs is digging into my knee so hard that I may well leave bruises on myself, which is some kind of hilarious new low. "No. He's as likely to follow me here as Lanthano would've been to follow me off towards Zhune. The offers have always been...one-way." As if I've ever had anything to offer him in the first place.

"Then further contact is a liability," she says. An explanation I probably don't deserve. This hurts worse because she is, I am sure of it, being gentle. Shaking me down for all the information she needs, but trying not to break anything important inside me during the process. "You will tell Zabina of any contact attempts from that direction."

I nod immediately.

She considers this a moment longer. I don't know if that's on her face, but it's in the way her fingers still against the desk. "Write him," she says. "Tell him to cut off contact as well, for his own safety. I will have the message delivered, and he'll know it to be true."

"Safest all around," I say. Yes, that's going to leave a bruise.

"Are there any other security risks you're aware of?"

Besides my former partner, who's wandering around doing I don't know what? Presumably by this point he's off. Doing something else. It's not my job to keep an eye on that, and she's well aware of that situation. I mentioned Sean as best I could without running into contract problems. I told her about Penny. (That letter. I'll think about it later. She'll give me a deadline, or I'll get it done before she feels obliged to. Later.) "No major ones that I can think of. There's an Impudite of Lust who might consider me responsible for some problems he had with the Game--"

"I'm aware of that one."

No doubt in more detail than I'd like. "And a Habbalite of Gluttony," let's be brisk, everyone will be happier if we skip the details, "who had a grudge against my partner but might have one against me now."

"The one you encountered when you set a portion of Shal-Mari on fire?"

"...slightly before that. Yes." And it was a very _small_ portion of the city. I don't think that even hit the news. They have architectural failures of all kinds there constantly, with their shoddy building standards. One little fire hardly even stands out.

"We are aware of those hazards," she says. Her fingers extend minutely, a flex and settle. Give me three more meetings like this, and I'll be able to read what she means just from watching her hands. (Give me three more meetings like this, and I may cut my own wrists. Does that even work in a useful way in Hell? I might find out.) "People who attempt to settle personal grudges against our employees will rapidly discover why they should not."

Like Henry, Force-stripped in front of his partner. After someone waited for him to wake up to make sure he appreciated the process. I nod and try to look reassured. I don't think it's working.

The Marquis's hand lifts from the desk for one of those small, direct gestures. "Go meet Lanthano," she says. "He's waiting for you."

I get out of the office without needing to remove a wall. That's a kind of win.


	23. An Interlude, In Which The Mail Arrives

Penny met the Ofanite at a roller skating rink, because there was no particular reason not to. She could have reached him faster than he reached the location she suggested for meeting up, but she didn't seem to consider the matter urgent, and he found it useful to leave Tethers and wander through the world of humanity in an unchallenging manner now and again. Too much distance from the way unaware humans lived their finite lives was unhealthy on several levels, most of which had to do with his job.

He acquired a soda and a giant pretzel from the concessions stand in the rink-side space full of picnic tables, where two employees were cleaning up the remains of some child's birthday party. He did not acquire roller skates, because there were limits to how far he intended to immerse himself in the human world on a casual maintenance basis.

The Ofanite spun up to him, a Wheel on wheels, and slammed to a halt with the application of one rubber stopper at the front of her skates. "Penny," she said, "it's good to see you."

Some of his Choirmates found opinion frustrating. The ones who were not as Elohim as they thought they were (he found this a little ironic) begrudged people the entire concept. Why not speak in fact? What was the use of going on and on about subjective experience? He had no problem with opinion and the statements thereof. The Ofanite was speaking purely from personal opinion, and it was honestly meant. How could he not be pleased at that? Why would he ever want people to shy away from those kinds of statements?

"And you," he said. "How long has it been? And what name are you going by here?"

"Years," she said, and spun in place. "Decades? Well, two decades, I guess that counts. Twenty-something years. These days I'm Sarah. How have you been?"

"It's been complicated," Penny said.

"Oo. So I've heard." She sat at last, a small concession given without resentment. "Can I have your pretzel? Do you want to talk about the complicated?"

"It's not the best story for this time and place," he said, and pushed the pretzel across the table to her. "If you ask Tess, I'm certain she'll explain her view of the matter."

"I'll _bet_." The Ofanite, who was called Sarah in this time and place, and thus held some honest claim to the name, took a bite of the pretzel. "This place is _terrible_. Good skating, though. Do you want a spin? There's another half hour before a class shows up and takes over."

"No, thank you. I gather the letter isn't urgent?"

"Didn't seem like it." Sarah took an envelope of heavy, textured gray paper from inside her coat. "The Lilim made me swear to deliver it to the right person and not look inside, and swore that to the best of her knowledge opening it and/or reading it wouldn't cause any harm to the intended recipient. Standard kind of thing. Hey, do you know if anyone can do that? The whole explosive runes thing?"

"I beg your pardon?"

The Ofanite puffed her hands apart, with a tiny explosion sound to go with the gesture. "You know. Explosive runes! Just like in--well, I guess you don't do those sorts of games. Never mind." She dropped the envelope in front of him. "--oo, and there it goes. Geases always feel so _weird_ when they're around. Like Discord, but not like the bad kind of Discord, you know?"

"I only know the comparison from one side," Penny said. He took out a pocketknife to open the envelope more neatly than a fingernail might. "When did you have the other sort of Discord?"

"Oh, you missed that, didn't you? About twelve years back. It wasn't a complete disaster, but that was a close thing. The Boss got it fixed, after I cleaned up my own mess." Sarah's mouth quirked at the painful memory; she was eliding painful details, not unreasonably. And _not a complete disaster_ was true, even if she wasn't certain of that. "Can I ask what's in the envelope?"

"You may ask," Penny said. He laid out the contents of the envelope on the table, as there was no longer a pretzel in the way. Two sheets of paper, folded in thirds. The first proved to have very little written on it, and all of that in a language he couldn't read. "Sarah, do you read Chinese?"

"I can puzzle out some addresses, with the help of my phone," said the Ofanite, "but that's about it. I'll text the office to set up a translator. You want?"

"Yes, please." He set that paper--letter, he decided, given its context--to the side, and opened the other one.

Penny recognized the handwriting. Jagged and tight, written in black ink. A more expensive pen on more expensive paper than the usual context for that hand. There was no difficulty of language, on this one.

_Dear Penny,_ said the letter, and meant it.

_I'm told that this is as private a form of communication as we're going to get, which means that my employer will read it before I send it to you, and we expect you'll show it to people on your side as well. This is an example of the entire problem right there, you know. It's not a matter of whether you or I trust each other at any point, but what side of the war we're each on, and what that means. We have our responsibilities, and we have people telling us what to do. I'm assured that's the way of the world. Experience tells me it's so. The big-name authority figures on both sides of the war insist it should be so, and who are we to believe otherwise? Hang around for a few millennia, and you probably get a better reading on these things than we kids do._

_And now I'm avoiding the topic. So here it is. We can't do this anymore. No more messages of varying degrees of secrecy, whatever the format. You're not about to come see me in my workplace, which is for the best. You wouldn't like it here. I'm not about to sign up with your employer; the job interview has that chance of death, which I do not favor, and that's only the first of the disadvantages._

_I left my partner. (Burying the lede, I know. Forgive me.) I'm working for someone new, even if the top of the chain of command hasn't changed. My partner wanted to hurt you; my current employer doesn't. I consider this an improvement overall, but it comes with conditions, as does anything in life. She tells me that if we don't maintain contact, there's no security risk, and thus she has no reason to bother you. While I believe her,_ (and that was the first part of the letter that was edging on a lie), _you'd be the better judge of how accurate that is. Regardless, I can't think that any more conversations are a good idea for either of us._

_I'm repeating myself. There'd be red marks on this if I turned it in to a professor; as no one is officially grading me on it, I can be self-indulgent up to a point. But I'm largely out of anything that is safe or wise to say. Take care._

_Leo_

_P.S. If through unpleasant chance Zhune should decide to harass you further, I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you shot him. He really should know better, but since when has that ever stopped anyone from doing anything?_

Penny folded the letter back into thirds, then once more in half.

"Is there something wrong?" the Ofanite asked.

"I believe I should go back to the office now," Penny said. It was easier than saying yes, and conveyed that answer perfectly well in the process.

#

Sarah drove back the car he had borrowed, at a downright law-abiding pace. As if he was fragile, and did not need further shocks. But he did not feel fragile, not during the drive, or while he made his way back through lines and security and checkpoints until he could reach one of the small rooms set aside for celestial workers in the Tether. (Unlike some, this one had to devote nearly all its space to practical business. He couldn't even feel the locus from where he sat, coffee in hands, contemplating a locked door.) Fragile was entirely the wrong word for it. He was not curved glass or thin silk.

A skyscraper, built properly, would sway under the force of an earthquake, and shake papers from desks, paintings from walls. Unsettle the people inside. Built properly, it would not _collapse_. He was not fragile, and he was--it came as a mildly reassuring surprise--rather angry. That someone had made that decision. That the same person, likely, had insisted Leo write a letter. An honest sort of letter, which that person read, and thus a letter constrained by the knowledge of every set of eyes that would move across it.

The truth could be a weapon like any other. He did not like seeing it in the wrong hands.

He let his coffee go cold in his hands. Its purpose was not as a beverage, but as a stable point of reference. Once upon a time he had lived in a part of the world where he drank neither coffee nor tea, but all sorts of alcohol, and that had been an acceptable way of life. The world changed. People changed, came into existence and left existence, and the world moved on. Not forgetting them, but able to continue without them.

Tessa stepped into the room, and he was not exactly surprised.

"What did that Destroyer do _this_ time?" she asked, and sat down beside him. She took away his cold coffee, and laid her hand over his. "Anything recoverable?"

"He believes that he's said goodbye to me forever," Penny said. "He's young enough to feel that twenty years is a lifetime, and fifty years an eternity."

"Fifty years is still enough time to not want to wait it out," Tessa said, "even for old hands like you and me."

"Quite."

"He's a damn fool," Tessa said.

"In some areas, certainly."

"And now he's gone and broken your heart?"

"You should know better," Penny said. But Elohim were not Seraphim, and could only read so much truth out of emotion. "He only scratched it."

"If you need us to mount a rescue mission," Tessa said, "we can scrape something together. Even though I think it's a terrible idea."

"If he wanted one, he knew full well how to ask for one. And he didn't." Penny took out the second letter, and held it out to her. "Would you translate this for me?"

"Gladly, though I don't think you'll be able to pull much information from that distance." Tessa unfolded the paper, and read through it twice before she spoke. "He is under my protection and authority. If you refrain from interfering in any business of mine, I will do you no harm." She snorted, but did not offer a personal comment on this statement. "Chaixin, Marquis of Theft. Demon of... well, I don't recognize that, and it's not in Chinese. I think that's an actual Helltongue glyph. We can find a translator upstairs."

"A Marquis," Penny said.

"That kid is moving up in the world," Tessa said. "Or maybe sideways. Do you think she meant it, about not doing you any harm?"

"If I stay out of her business. What she considers her business..." Penny put aside other emotions in favor of the cold, practical anger. "Likely she means it. I'm well beneath her notice."

"I'm sorry," Tessa said, which was true enough to count, coming from an Elohite. "I know you wanted a better ending on that one."

"He's still alive," Penny said. "I can wait."


	24. In Which Work Gets Mixed With Vacation

Lanthano turns out to be distinctly proud of three things attached to his Role: his house, his boyfriend, and his cat. Of the three, I'm most fond of the house.

There's nothing wrong with his boyfriend, really. The man's human, dimly aware that there's more to Lanthano's life than anyone is telling him about, and remarkably accepting of that. By ten minutes into the first dinner we have together, I'm pretty sure he believes his boyfriend is part of a crime syndicate and has chosen to not ask questions. Probably the best choice.

The boyfriend also turns out to have a wife and two children; he shows me pictures of all of them. As between the two of us we don't have even a quarter of a language in common, it falls to Lanthano to explain to me that the arrangement is acceptable to all the adults involved, and kept well out of the eyesight of the children. My favorite Impudite is, in fact, quite firm on this point. He has the oddest ideas of what constitutes appropriate behavior around humans, and how they ought to be treated.

Not like I'm one to speak, there.

His cat is pushy, clingy, and covered in hair that sticks to everything I wear at the slightest touch. Lanthano claims this means the cat likes me. I think the cat is attempting to claim me for its own by leaving parts of itself all over everything I own. Nor am I a fan of its habit of curling up in the center of whatever I'm trying to read, and purring loudly. While digging claws into my books, thighs, or whatever else it can get happy kneading paws into.

It's not hard to convince Lanthano to close the cat out of the room when we're getting busy, except that then the cat just sits by the door and cries the whole damn time. So we end up with an audience, instead. Not what I had in mind, but as relationship quirks go, I've dealt with worse.

But the house? It's a house I like. About the right size for two people, if they're quiet sorts who need space to themselves from time to time. Large enough that it's not crowded when Lanthano's boyfriend is over, not so large that it feels vast and empty with just the two of us, the way Zabina's always does with three in residence. (Maybe the cat helps. I am not going to suggest that to her.) The windows pointed towards the street are tree-shaded, and the ones in the back look out into the walled garden. It feels like a place that's self-contained and protected, without being a one-exit trap.

I think it's as much of an indulgence as Yuliang's high apartment with the perfect city view. Just in a different direction.

"Not an indulgence, exactly," Lanthano says, while we're in the garden, appreciating a sunny day of precisely the right temperature for reading in the shade. "Appreciation for services rendered. The longer you work for the company, the more company resources you can reasonably draw on." He smiles at me, white-toothed and a little more demonic than he lets on when humans are in the house. "Do you want a house?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to stick close to Zabina, for a variety of reasons, only some of which have to do with security." I move the cat's paw aside so that I can flip a page. "I can tell this cat is yours, because it's trying to steal my book."

"Eun appreciates a good book as much as anyone." Lanthano stretches out a leg to prop a foot on my knee, almost close enough to interfere with my reading from the other side. "I meant long-term, though. Houses, gardens, cats. Boyfriends. Do you want that sort of thing? Not everyone does. Cars, libraries, wardrobes..." He nudges the edge of my book with his foot. "Frequent flyer miles to go see an adorable New York Lilim with an expensive espresso machine."

"I don't even _like_ coffee, Lanthano." I move the cat's paw again, and then its tail. "Don't tell him that."

"Wouldn't dream of it. My point is that you should figure out what you want, and tell the right kind of people. Zabina, if no one else. It'll give you something to work towards." 

"I have what I need already," I say.

"Any Lilim could tell you that everyone needs _something_ , whether they admit it or not. Need, want..." He shrugs loosely, and tilts his head back until his hair slides into a patch of sunlight. "What's your real objection? Because it's not 'I have everything I could possibly want right this minute,' I'm sure of that."

I have had two days of cats and gardens and home-cooked meals I don't recognize. It's enough to convince me to give straight answers for a conversation or two. "Do you think any kind of loyalty is real if it can be bought?"

"Yes." He didn't even have to stop to think about that one. "All loyalty is purchased, Leo. But just as we demonstrate a certain cheerful disregard for property rights, we don't feel too attached to cash as the means of purchasing things worth having. There are all sorts of ways to convince a person to do something. Balseraph resonance and Habbalite resonance, Shedim riding in human heads, Geases and contracts and prices..." He shrugs loosely. "Love and friendship and the reliable promise of a studio apartment in a desirable city location. Reasonable assignments and cats and help with figuring out what to wear to that one party you actually care about. Every kind of relationship out there, it's a matter of payments and debts. Even if a lot of them aren't physical."

"I don't know. It doesn't seem that way to me." I tap the sole of his feet with my knuckles. "Do you think I come to visit you because you got me a nice watch and a jacket?"

"Did you notice that the watch I gave you was the one you left behind in Seattle?"

I can't help but look at it. Still ticking away. Swapping the watchbands regularly helps. "Of course I noticed. But it wasn't about the watch. If you expand the concept of 'payment' to...attention and memory, it becomes meaningless. Everything's bought or sold. And I know that's not so, because it discounts theft entirely."

"We don't steal from coworkers," Lanthano says. "Nothing important. You can't build a solid relationship on that. So we give each other some respect, and get it paid back in return. Not always at an even exchange rate, but still. Chaixin would like you better attached, no secret _that_ , and so why not tell her what you want? The important parts aren't dropped in your lap. You get to earn them. It means more that way."

I don't have a good answer to any of this. Maybe I don't want to name a price because I'm afraid it would work. This company, Marquis and all, is where I'm attached. It would be so much easier if I could believe in it the way I used to believe in Fire, and never quite believed in anything since.

Well. I almost believed in Zhune, for a while. Which wasn't the same as believing what he said. Not all of it. If there was ever a relationship based on theft, there you have it. What I wouldn't give he took, and when I tried giving that up there was always some new level of privacy he could find to take away again. Maybe it's a Djinn thing.

Maybe it was just him.

"It's been a long time since I had a Role to attach any possessions to," I say. "It's a bit early to come up with long-term goals I can count on still finding interesting next year."

"Or ten years from now?"

"Let's not get wild, here."

Lanthano laughs, and slides over to sit beside me. "You are such a _pessimist_ sometimes. Ten years from now, I will harass you about that. If nothing else..." He pulls out his phone to glance at the latest beep for a text--he gets a few every hour--and loses that train of thought. "Huh. Wren's stopping by. I wasn't expecting her until tomorrow, or maybe not at all. She's not great about keeping appointments."

"The Lilim?" I give up on trying to read, as Lanthano's cat has oozed, centimeter by fuzzy centimeter, across half of my book. "Something up?"

"Maybe. Or maybe she's heading out of the city and wanted to see you first." He drags his fingers through my hair, which was not particularly tidy to start with. "The new coworker shine will wear off eventually. Probably after the first company party. Do you mind?"

"Meeting coworkers? No." I don't have Guo's handy employee guide at hand, and she's not one of the ones I put much thought into memorizing the details of. "Anything I should know about her?"

"Nothing unusual, really. She doesn't hold down Roles, which is weird on the Impudite side, and standard on the Shedite side, so I guess a Lilim is allowed to pick between the two." He thinks a moment longer. "Oh, and don't touch her, unless it's an emergency."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "None of my business. Probably it won't be an issue once she knows you better. But she doesn't like strangers touching her."

"The way I don't like wearing skirts, or the way you don't like visiting Shal-Mari?"

"More the latter."

I wonder who she served before the Marquis rescued her. If the information hasn't been volunteered, I'm sure it's not polite to ask.

#

Despite the text, Wren doesn't arrive until after sunset and dinner both. She lets herself into the house without knocking, and hands Lanthano a pastry box. "Sorry I'm late," she says, which even in Helltongue does not pretend to be more than a pro forma statement. "Do you have plans for the evening?"

Her vessel is the Korean and female version of my own: inconspicuous. That's my best guess, anyway, because it's not elegant or adorable or androgynous or sleek or sexy or charming or intimidating, like all the other vessels people in this company usually pick. Even Baolan, who can switch presentation with a change of their posture, is distinct for having that malleable option. I could not pick Wren out of a lineup after viewing a fuzzy security camera shot of her face, which is probably the point. Her hair's pulled back in a loose ponytail, and she's wearing anonymous gray-and-blue clothing that allows plenty of freedom of movement. I know how to interpret _that_ outfit.

"I'm guessing I do now," Lanthano says, accepting the box gracefully. He pops it open, and hands me the first cream-filled pastry tube. The name on the box is Italian; all these coworkers of mine, whatever the place their Roles are attached to, seem awfully fond of imports. "What do you need?"

"Standard backup," Wren says, accepting the next pastry. She shrugs one shoulder. "I need to shake down a target's house for a small object, and I don't want to be interrupted. If you can shadow the target for a few hours... She's not supposed to be back until the bars close, but things happen."

"I'm good at watching people in bars," Lanthano says, with a wry smile. "Leo, you want to come along, or keep the cat company?"

I eye the cat, who is grooming itself exactly as it has been for the last twenty minutes. If I didn't know better, I would suspect a small fuzzy robot had gotten stuck in a function loop. "I'll come along, though I'd rather shake down an apartment than shadow."

"It has to be done neatly," says the Lilim. She studies me with the focus--it's not the same as intensity--that I've come to recognize as checking my Needs. "Also, I'm going in through a window, on the fourth floor."

"Neither of those is a problem, if you don't mind the company."

She sucks cream from her fingers one by one. The gesture reads nothing like the way it would if Yuliang or Lanthano did it exactly the same way. "Then you can come with me, and the job will go faster."

As with many decisions made in the company, it's really that simple.

#

After a few months of climbing a variety of municipal architecture in Germany, a rather old-fashioned apartment block in Seoul has no challenge to it. The most difficult part of the process is borrowing an appropriately colored hoodie from Lanthano to replace my otherwise unfortunately pale jacket. (That part is only difficult because Lanthano has _opinions_ on fashion coordination, and I'm not allowed out of the house in the borrowed hoodie until he's adjusted two other items I'm wearing.) There are no convenient balconies on this building, but it has a side usefully obscured from street view and not well illuminated, which is even better.

Wren has the window open by the time I reach it. She stands to the side, waiting for me to join her, and then slides it shut again.

"Not planning on a fast exit?"

"Not if Lanthano's doing his job," she says. "Which he is. He's reliable."

"Never doubted that," I say, "but surprises happen."

"If another set of housebreakers shows up while we're shaking the place down," she says, "I'll deploy a smoke bomb and we can flee before they notice."

Cannot actually tell if she's joking. Probably, but knowing the sort of odd people this company picks up...

Like me. Case in point. I shrug it off, and look around the apartment. It's about what you'd expect for a computer tech living alone: one bedroom, a kitchen used more for stacking items than cooking, shelves of knick-knacks and posters with cartoon characters on them. One bedroom. No apparent pets. "What are we looking for?"

"Data," Wren says, moving directly for the laptop on the coffee table. "Probably a USB stick of some sort."

I pull on gloves, and open the first drawer in the kitchen. "I thought everyone kept their data on the cloud these days."

"Sure. And smart people also keep off-site hard copies. She's smart, and she knows that what she puts into 'the cloud'," and I can almost hear the finger quotes from Wren on that phrase, "other people can yank out."

None of the silverware in the first drawer turns out to be made of data containment device. I do a token check for false bottoms on the drawer, and move on. "And she doesn't trust this information to the company she works for."

"She's compiling information that will sink them, given a reasonably uncorrupt court system and no one shooting her first." Wren snorts faintly, as she checks beneath the couch cushions. "Which are never safe to count on. If she had the right sort of friends, she would have handed the information to them to release in the event of her own death or mysterious disappearance, but she doesn't think it's that serious."

I'm three drawers in, and almost out of drawers. Small kitchen. "But it is?"

"It's always that serious," Wren says. "People will kill each other over a pair of shoes and a funny look. Why wouldn't they kill over information that could hurt their business? Whether it's a neighborhood bakery or a multinational corporation. Scale doesn't matter. Just how ruthless the people who want to keep it are."

I start in on the cupboards. "So what's our angle on this? Industrial Espionage doesn't read to me as being all about protecting companies from their own mistakes."

"There's a lot more to our work than the Word," Wren says, sharp for a moment. "There was _always_ more than that." She stands in the middle of the living room, arms crossed over her chest, and considers one of the bookcases. "Check the bathroom when you're done in the kitchen."

I shut up, and focus on the work I volunteered for.

We're being methodical, and putting everything back in place. It's my preferred method of searching a location; the messy approach may be faster, but you're as likely to accidentally obscure what you're looking for in the hurry as you are to find it faster. I finish the bathroom while Wren is still checking shelves, and I do another pass on the kitchen for a few new places before I move on to the bedroom.

More memorabilia on the dresser and shelves, and a bed that hasn't been made. Slept in by one person. This human whose apartment we're invading is out until the bars close tonight, and I hope she's having a good time of it. Setting yourself up to be a whistleblower on your employer can't be fun at the best of times, and it's going to get a lot less fun when your evidence disappears.

I check the socks and underwear first, because some people don't know better. Under the mattress next, because some people are traditional. And then I stand back, look over the bedroom, and consider where a smart, socially inept human, who believes her company would steal back what she's taken from them, but not that they'd kill her, would hide this kind of data.

Ideally, in a place other than at home. It's the obvious place to look; I mean, look at _us_. But she doesn't have friends she trusts to hold onto this for her. Regular destinations are just as hazardous, for anyone following her around, and harder for her to keep track of. And you don't want to put it anywhere that someone robbing the apartment in an ordinary manner would grab it. No jewelry boxes, no boxes of tea, no hollowed-out fake books on the shelves. (She doesn't have enough shelves to make those hard to shake down.) The kind of thing that someone yanking open drawers and flinging things about would fling, not check.

So I start checking the knick-knacks on the shelf. It takes me about two dozen--this woman loves her adorable figurines, with or without bobbleheads--before I find the whimsical purple unicorn with a head that pops right off.

I bring what I've found to Wren, who's still clearing the living room shelves. "This?"

She takes the unicorn's body from me. "Huh," she says, and slots the USB bit--I'm not actually sure what that side of it is called--into a port on her phone. I'm pretty sure my phone doesn't have a straight-up USB port on it. "Keep looking while I check this one."

Wren calls me back five minutes later. "It's what we want," she says. "We can go, now." She hands me the unicorn, reassembled. "Put that back exactly where you found it."

"Shouldn't we check for other copies?"

"We're not trying to keep the information away from her," the Lilim says, with a faint smile. "We're handing it over to someone who'll release it first."

I take the unicorn back to its place between a bobble-headed superhero and a tiny knit cat. "Why?"

"Why isn't your business," Wren says. "On this job, it's not my business, either. Do you ask about the final goals for the jobs you take very often?"

"Sometimes. How much people will tell me helps me figure out how likely they are to screw me over."

"Anyone who fucks with us is fucking with Chaixin," Wren says. She shrugs loosely, and returns to the window we came in through. "Anyone who does that is either powerful enough that asking questions won't help, or stupid enough that they're probably running on a bad plan to start with."

Or planning on a really secure exit strategy, that ends up with them standing behind someone powerful who wasn't in charge of the job to start with. Or--any number of other things. But arguing with senior employees who deign to give me advice won't win me any points around here. I nod like this makes perfect sense--and it does make some, and I shouldn't ask why, because this isn't any of my business--and follow her out the window. Closing it properly while I'm on the wall outside is a little tricky. But only a little.

I wonder if she ever visits Zabina, and if she'd enjoy climbing more interesting buildings.

#

Lanthano meets us at the house; we've let ourselves inside, because standing too long in front of someone's front door at one in the morning gives neighbors the wrong idea. "Don't do that," Lanthano says immediately upon walking in.

Wren looks up from where she's sitting on the floor. "Cats like cream." She shrugs, and takes a bite of the pastry she was feeding to his cat. "Did you have a good time out?"

"Good enough. Did you find what you were looking for?" He slips out of his coat, hangs it by the door, and collects his cat--who protests loudly at being taken from the lap of the cream-giver--on his way past Wren. I'm not about to object when he settles down next to me, even if I wonder at what has him just that tiny fraction on edge.

"Right ahead of schedule. I'm good." Wren sprawls back on her hands, looking up at us. "Probably I won't make it to lunch tomorrow. I might be out of the city. Or out of the country, depending."

"No problem. If you can stick around for a few more hours--"

"I should probably get going," she says, climbing to her feet. She does stop to pet the cat. "Take care, have fun, that sort of thing. Nice meeting you, Leo."

She's good at the pro forma. She doesn't mean that last statement in any particularly heartfelt manner, and I'm fine by that. With the number of Impudites in this company, it's a nice change of pace now and again to run into someone who has no interest in charming me, without jumping straight to Adrian's style of deliberate offense.

I toe off my shoes, and turn around on the couch to make a better surface for Lanthano to lean against. "Anything happen while you were out?"

"Nothing exciting. Visited clubs, talked to people." He settles his head against my chest, and pulls my arms down over his. We have left leaning, and we're trending towards an actual cuddle. (And he doesn't mind whether it's his arms around me or mine around him, though if I have preferences he'll listen. Or _notice_ , before I've even said anything.) "Need any Essence?"

"I'm full up, thanks." And vaguely wishing I wasn't, so that I could accept. Yuliang can make foreplay out of Essence exchange, and I'm pretty sure Lanthano likes it just as much. "The thing with Wren went fine, too. Once in a while it's nice to have a job go exactly as planned." Once in a while it's nice to have a _job_. I hadn't realized how much I missed feeling like I was doing something useful until I handed that drive over. "Something bothering you?"

"Nothing," Lanthano says. He curls his leg over mine. "Why do you ask?"

"Because something's bothering you. But I can pretend that I haven't noticed, if you'd rather."

He laughs shortly. "Leo, it's not _fair_ when you use my own lines against me. You're not supposed to pick up on them that fast."

"Hey, who else am I supposed to imitate, with figuring out how to do this whole social thing?" I kiss the back of his head, all shiny hair, and feel a tiny portion of the tension leave the muscles in his back. Which was the point. He's an Impudite, and he needs attention the way I need to break things once in a while. "So never mind the details. My evening was fine, yours wasn't, anything I can do to improve the rest of your night?"

"Anything?"

Well, at least he sounds less unhappy already. "You can always make requests. You ask for something I'm not up for, we'll find something else."

He turns around to sit across my knees, dislodging the cat in the process. The cat stalks off, all affronted dignity, and will be back to pester us for attention within five minutes. Very much like an Impudite, both of them. "What if I decide to be unreasonably picky tonight?"

"Then I guess we do a lot of negotiation as to what makes us both happy." I rest my forehead against his. This works so much better in these bodies than back in Hell. "Lanthano, I'm trying to picture you being unreasonably picky, and it's just not working. But if you'd like to _try_ , we can see how it goes."

"Bottom right drawer of the dresser," Lanthano murmurs. "I can be unreasonable."

"You're going to have to try harder."

"I'll see what I can do. Just for you."


	25. In Which Only The Right Things Get Broken

The first thing Lanthano does is pour out a handful of the good catnip in the cat's bed, and then shut the bedroom door with said cat on the other side.

"This was an option all along?" I ask, rather pointedly.

"If I use that too often, the drugs don't work as well," Lanthano says, with the complete lack of shame that one comes to expect from an Impudite. And maybe I should not be quibbling about the fact that he's drugging his cat to give us some extra privacy. "It's either that or call my boyfriend to come over and entertain the cat."

"At this hour of the morning? Night. Whichever."

Lanthano shrugs loosely. "He'd show up if I asked. I'd make it up to him later. I always do." That's part of his pride in having that boyfriend, as much as he's proud of his cat; not only that they're pretty and affectionate, but that he takes care of them properly in return. It's the company culture, top to bottom, that we should do whatever we're asked from above, and receive something in return.

I find that I'm leaning against the door. That's probably a bad habit, not least of which because it implies a reluctance I am not currently feeling. "So what _do_ you want? As long as we're both here and the cat isn't."

"I'd like to ask a lot of questions," Lanthano says, "and get reasonably honest answers. Verbal or otherwise." He is always charming, to one degree or another, but his smile's sliding away from casual into wicked, as one measures these things.

"What sorts of questions?"

He crouches down by the dresser, and pulls open the drawer he mentioned earlier. "This and that. How are you doing? Do you like that? Would you kneel down right there? That sort of thing." He holds up a set of leather cuffs, chained together. "They're just questions, not an interrogation. We're not doing Game roleplay."

The mind boggles, and recoils somewhat a moment afterward. "That's a thing?"

"That is a thing, Leo." Lanthano stands up, and grins sharply. "But I'd use standard handcuffs for that. Which aren't great for what we're up to. You've really never run into that before?"

"I know there's all sorts of weird porn in Hell, and I assume they don't get _actual Gamesters_ to play those parts, but that's..." I wave a hand. "Porn. It tells dumb stories around the people having sex."

"Roleplay isn't everyone's thing, but some people are into it." Lanthano spins the cuffs around one finger. "Two Gamesters and their suspect? That sort of thing? No? There are some Thieves who are really into playing cops and robbers, if you know what I mean."

"I...guess I do?" I'm still trying to picture it. There's a picture, and I'm not seeing the appeal. "Seriously, cops and robbers?"

"Less popular than you might expect. Or maybe you wouldn't. Or Judgment roleplay! That's a whole subgenre, you know. Especially on the supposedly illegal tapes back home." When he says _home_ he's actually referring to Hell. Most of the time.

"Judgment. Roleplay." I sit down on the edge of the bed while I try to think about this. "If that's one of the questions, the answer is _no_."

"I only do that one on request," Lanthano says soothingly. "It's come up a few times."

"Which side did you play?"

"Judgment. Naturally." He is always posing, and just for a moment his pose is...judgmental. _Arch_. A man looking down on someone who has been accused of a serious crime, the nature of which needs investigation. It's gone in another breath, and he's only amused again. "I got good reviews."

"What Choir?" It is the only coherent question I have right now. I need to either ask questions that move this conversation somewhere else, or start picturing Judges I have met in ways I have never, ever wanted to picture them.

"Most people want to know who in the company was involved," Lanthano says. "But for the record, Malakite."

"With all due respect, some of your--our coworkers are very strange." At least it wasn't a Seraph. I'm not sure what I would do with that information.

"Define normal," Lanthano says cheerfully. His shoes are back in the main room with mine, and so he climbs onto the bed without any care for that. "None of this equipment is irreplaceable, but I rather like it, so _tell me_ if we get anywhere near territory where you're likely to break it."

"I'll let you know."

"Thank you." He pulls my wrists behind my back, and unbuckles my watch. "You haven't reset this from Seattle time?"

"I'm pretty good at adding and subtracting two-digit numbers." I twist my head around to try to watch what he's doing. Nothing more complicated yet than taking my watch off. And putting it on his wrist, just above his own watch. "Maybe I'll change that when I get back."

"You still live like you'll have to drop everything and run away at any moment," he says, and sets a cuff around one of my wrists. "Don't you?"

_Of course not_ comes to mind. But all he's asked for so far is honest answers. _Reasonably_ honest answers. Wiggle room for plausible deniability and working around the answers to the wrong sorts of questions. "It's a hard habit to break. Theft, you know."

"It's fine to run away, now and again." He locks the other cuff into place. I have about fifteen centimeters of chain to work with. "You leave the important stuff at home, and come back to it."

"Lanthano, we hang out with a pack of _thieves_. Leaving the important stuff at home is a good way to come back to a cleared-out house. If you can't carry it with you, it probably wasn't all that important." I pull my wrists apart, just far enough to test the pull of the chain and the grip of the leather. I could slide my hands out of these, but I'd have to pay attention to do it. They're just tight enough to make the move non-trivial, if I get to that point. The sort of thing someone who is not a Calabite of Theft would have trouble with.

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in Stygia," Lanthano says, and twists the chain between his fingers, pulling my wrists closer together. "Where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal."

"First point, I don't think the quote reads that way. Second point, Stygia? Really?"

"Well-defended parts of Stygia," Lanthano says, "where everyone knows a Marquis will dismember impertinent thieves if the traps or security doesn't get them first. But that didn't scan as well." He twists the chain one rotation tighter. He's not _touching_ me, but he's near enough for his breath to disturb the hairs at the back of my neck. "You don't have anywhere to be for a few hours, do you?"

"Nowhere else springs to mind."

"Good to hear. Most of my plans for the night don't involve leaving home." He draws a line across my throat with two fingers, then tugs on the drawstring to the hoodie. "Do you want to keep all this clothing on?"

"Maybe you should've thought about that before the cuffs came out?"

"Oh, Leo." I can hear the grin in his voice. "Can't a Calabite think of a way around that?"

" _Easily_ , but everything I'm wearing above the waist belongs to you."

He kisses the side of my neck. "That's all replaceable. Do you want to break it?"

There's a part of my soul--I never mean that in the human sense some hypothetical core self, but in the literal celestial sense of the Forces that define my existence--that fears fire, because I serve a Prince who finds that sort of thing amusing. It's a crack and a stain so embedded in my soul that there's no way to remove it without making me stop existing. It is entirely unfair. My nature and existence is built on being broken in a way that can't be fixed.

So when I look at the Symphony through that crack in myself, the nature of reality itself shrugs awkwardly and says, sure, yeah, things are kinda fucked over, aren't they? And then what I want to break complies. It's compensation. It's as near as this universe ever comes to justice, and of course we use it to commit more injustice, because we're demons. Unfairness breeds.

But sometimes it's straight-up fun.

I take the hoodie apart at the seams. The focus is finicky, especially since I can't look at it properly, but there's a sense of what exists in a place when I start trying to resonate something, and much as I could take a lock apart from the inside in the dark, I can pick out the right threads in sequence. Along the arms and across the shoulders, reality unstitching itself at my command. (I can't not be a Calabite. What else could compare to this resonance?) It'd be better if I could see Lanthano's face while I do this; it's _his_ possessions I'm taking apart.

"Much nicer," he says, and leaves off playing with the chain between my wrists to slide his hands along my forearms. "Do you want to leave it at that?"

"It's a nice shirt." Better on him than on me, but that's true of all clothing, even aside from the matter of fit. And truth be told, I have better, at least by some standards, back at Zabina's place. This one I reduce to dust--fluff, given the material--that'll probably get into awkward places later. "It's a good thing you have more."

"Plenty more." He tucks his chin over my bare shoulder. "And I can always bring out a heater if the terrible spring chill starts getting to anyone."

"It's nearly summer, isn't it?"

"Nearly isn't the same as is." He pulls back, but only to lay a kiss on the edge of my shoulder. The kind that turns into a bite: not sharp, but slow and hard enough to make me shiver. (I won't later. But it's early in the night yet.) "Do you like that?"

"Yes." Simple question, simple answer, and that means he's going somewhere with it.

Where he's going is along my shoulder, with a patience I will likely find infuriating in another fifteen minutes if he keeps to this pace. One kiss and bite after the next, leaving a trail leading from my arm towards my neck. Keeping still is easier after the first.

I am not entirely surprised when he doesn't stop at my shoulder, but begins working his way up my neck. I'll be wearing the marks he's surely leaving for the remainder of this visit, and back at Zabina's place--well, I usually wear this vessel at night, in dark places where I'm not meeting a lot of people.

It's too warm out for scarves, here, but so what? Do I really care what the locals think of me? I can't even ask for directions; I'm not trying to charm any mortals here.

And he's sitting back again, where I can't see him without twisting all the way around. "Stopping already?" I ask.

"Only on that. I like the asymmetrical look on you." He lays a hand over my right shoulder, skin on top of new-forming tiny bruises. Almost small enough that they won't do anything, and the touch is steady enough that they aren't doing anything. Yet. "Now we have more options. Which side do you prefer?" His fingers shift. Just enough of a glide across one bite to make me twitch.

Only twitching. I'm good at not _saying_ anything on that one. Not on a first touch. It's the hiccup and growl of the key in the ignition, before the engine's started. Sparks on the nerves trying to start a fire.

Maybe that's the wrong metaphor, but it feels right. Fire's a problem, no matter how I feel about it. "The other side," I say. The safe answer, backing away from what would burn me, and Lanthano takes his hand away, sets his other on my left shoulder instead, where it's nothing but skin to skin without complications.

I still set cigarettes on fire, and let them burn down near to my hands. But maybe I don't feel like watching how close the ember can get before it hurts me, tonight.

There will be other nights for trying that.

"Would you mind moving to the floor?" Lanthano asks, the same way he asks me to pass something at the table during dinner. He's setting his own theme for this, and it's that he is making reasonable, casual requests of no great emotional weight. I can work with this. And I can slide off the bed to the floor; having my hands locked behind my back doesn't exactly stop me. Though it does throw off my balance, in ways that catch me off guard by being subtle. I'm more used to being restrained while in serious conflict with someone than trying to move normally while just having my hands...not where I would otherwise put them.

Lanthano sits at the edge of the bed, cross-legged, and smiles up at me. "Do you want to kneel down?"

I lower myself to my knees in front of him. More carefully for having no way to catch himself, and because the floor's hard. "What were you going to ask for next, if I said no?"

"You'll just have to keep guessing." He tugs me in closer, a hand to one shoulder, a hand to my upper arm. He's not going to touch a one of those marks he left again unless I tell him otherwise. Or unless he asks again, and gets another answer. "Comfortable?"

"You could invest in a rug."

"I'll keep that in mind." He slides both hands into my hair, and grins. Sharp, this time. "Do you want something rougher than last time?"

Oh, we're past the easy questions now. Though we're still working on yes or no, right or left, the easy answers. No. Not easy, but simple. "Sure. Why not?"

"Why _not_ depends from one person to another." Lanthano's hands close tight on my hair (I think I need a haircut again, it's easier to forget on this vessel) and one gives a short, hard tug. "Some people simply don't like pain. Some people don't like alcohol, or cats, or salads... And most people, whatever they do like, only like it in the right context." He pulls harder, rocking me toward him with the force. "Is this the right context for you?"

I take a quick breath. "Apparently."

"What makes it the right context?"

And we're not going anywhere until I answer his question. Easier if I were staring at the floor, but maybe we're not quite at that point yet. "Oh, you know. Handcuffs, hard floors, the cat locked outside, and the right sort of person."

"Maybe you should arrange for that sort of context more often." He pets my hair, down the side of my cheek. Stopping at my jawline, before he can touch anything I've asked him not to. "Will you tell me if you're not having fun?"

"Yes?"

"Good. Would you lean in?" His smile's all feral when I do. Not every question requires a verbal response. "Open up?"

Not strictly phrased as a question, but I'll take it. My wrists jerk against the cuffs--the wisdom of not going with standard handcuffs becomes clear, I _know_ what that would feel like with that kind--because recent habit says to reach forward. Lanthano has never made me keep my hands back just to prove a point, the way Regan used to.

No, he just chained them back there, and asked me nicely not to break his toys. Which I can _do_. One way or another, I know how to open up and lean in (after a brief pause for Lanthano to unzip, because in this case he doesn't want my hands-free method of getting clothing off) and get this process started.

Except I'm not the one getting anything started. Lanthano grips my hair, _hard_ , and pulls. Twists his hands in for a better grip, and holds me in close, me with my mouth full and wondering--well, never mind that. "This is why I ask," he says, and pulls my head away just far enough to make me wonder, before he pulls me back in again. "I like the answers."

And _then_ he slips into Korean, which I cannot parse more than two words of. But it's a friendly sort of commentary track, running along in irregular sentences while his hands keep me to a much steadier rhythm. Or maybe I'm not the one in the rhythm at all; he's doing the work, while I keep up. While I respond to the implied series of questions by falling into the pull, resisting the push, and that's my answer.

I'm going to end up with a sore jaw, never mind what he's doing to my hair. I am okay with this. Though if he pulls any damn harder, my eyes will start to water from that. And every time the back and forth, the sharp yanks, are getting to me--that's when my wrists snap apart. Making the chain clank. And I swear, he grins every time he hears that.

When he pulls me in close and holds me there, that's warning enough that he's about to finish. It's almost like back with Regan again. More chains, fewer insults, about the same amount of swallowing. And a less complicated kind of satisfaction when he lets go of me, and looks down.

I sit back on my heels. "Do I even want to know what you were saying?"

"Pick up the language, and you'll find out." He stands up, and pulls his shirt off, tossing it across the room. "Mind waiting there for a minute?"

I try to rub my jaw, and make the chain clank again when the cuffs catch. If I'm not careful, I'll forget and slip my hands right out of there. "Mm, not for one minute."

"You're the soul of patience." Being an Impudite apparently lets a man take off tight jeans, while standing up, and still make it look elegant. That's some sort of magic right there. "Any special requests?"

Nothing that I'm willing to make explicit. Besides, he knows what he's doing, and I can't always say the same in the bedroom. Not given the respective tastes of people I've spent much time with before. "The cat _is_ going to stay outside, right?"

"Yes. There. Special request granted." He sorts through the drawer, the clink and thunk of contents I can't see, and returns with a tangle of leather straps. No chains, this time. "Do you remember that conversation in Seattle, about what we could get up to back here?"

"How could I forget?" Though if I refrain from reviewing the specific details, I may be able to avoid the embarrassment of blushing yet. That's the sort of reaction that a few days with Yuliang ought to shake out of me entirely, and yet there it is.

"Any objections to what I suggested at the time?" He kneels down next to me, far too pleased with himself still. He ought to get a rug if we're going to be spending this much time on the floor.

"I'd rather not have witnesses."

"Not unless they're participating?" He's delighted. That makes this line of questioning better and worse, all at once.

"And I don't do humans for fun." I'm on polite, friendly terms with Lanthano's boyfriend, and I would like to keep that level of acquaintance _exactly_ there. Spectators are not on the list of what I find appealing, at that.

"So, no human witnesses. I can work with that." He shakes the straps out into a simpler configuration. Leash and collar, and he winds the collar around my neck without asking. (But then, he did ask.) "How do you feel about coworkers? Hypothetically, not tonight. Wren already left."

Which he's disappointed by, and trying not to show, so I can very well pretend I didn't notice. "I suppose it depends on--context."

He slides the strap through the buckle, and cinches the collar up against my throat. "What sort of context?"

"Which coworker. What they want to do. Vessel choice all around."

"I'd like to take you to the company party like this," he says. "Not this year, but some other. When you've met everyone properly."

"Like this?"

"On a leash," he says, and tugs the collar another notch tighter. Not quite to the point of pinching, or making it hard for me to breathe. "Down on your knees for the right sort of people. It's one way to enjoy that kind of party. I've been there on both sides, so I should know."

"You people have the _strangest_ idea of fun." I'm almost certainly blushing again. "Why all the sex?"

"Why not? It's a way to connect with other people, and if you do it right, everyone enjoys it. It's the sort of thing that makes a party worthwhile." He leans against me, the two of us on this floor together, though the leash is in his hands. "It's not all sex. Gossip and alcohol and presents, and whatever other types of entertainment people want to bring. The Shedim show off their prettiest hosts, and usually something in the room gets broken by accident, and...you'll like it. If you want, you can sit at a table in the corner with Captain Dio and talk Word theory all night." He nips at my ear, and adds in equal cheer, "Though sitting at a table in the corner, talking Word theory, is more fun if there's someone under the table at the time. And it varies. One year someone introduced us all to LSD at the same time, and _that_ turned into a new rule in the employee handbook."

I am not trying to picture any of this, and yet I am. I am being entertaining to the Impudite at my side, and didn't I volunteer? " _Everyone_ was on acid?"

"Almost everyone. Someone--let's not name names--not only stayed sober, he brought a camera. So that kept things exciting for a while back at the office." Lanthano climbs into my lap, and I wish he weren't the only one naked in this room. "It's _fun_. It gives everyone something to talk about for the rest of the year. You could come along, all collar and cuffs and blindfold, and get down on your knees and make a lot of people happy, and I'd sort it out so that none of the Shedim were involved, since you have that thing about humans. Not this year, just. Some year."

I am not picturing that. (Is picturing even the right word, for imaging something I wouldn't be able to see, and the darkness and sensation in the midst of it?) "Who was on the other end of the leash? When you were holding it."

"A few different people. Some you haven't met. One time, it was Wren."

"I thought she didn't like people touching her."

"Context," Lanthano says. "I made sure only the right people did. And she trusted me to do that. So it worked out fine." He taps the buckle of the collar. "Tighter?"

It's not like he can slam me against the wall with a hand to my throat, the way Regan can. And yet. "A bit."

He pulls another notch through the buckle. That's tight enough to make swallowing a little uncomfortable. "Tighter?"

"Just. A bit."

Another notch, and there's no ignoring that pressure anymore. I swallow twice. So that's a different kind of hurt than the small soreness at the back of my throat, or the ache in my jaw. Lanthano sits back a little, looking more thoughtful now. "Any tighter?"

"Sure." I can feel my own words when I speak them.

Another notch through, and that's getting hard to breathe. Not enough that I'm going to black out from it. (Not enough to gray out. I'm so familiar with the precise levels of this kind of thing.) He tilts his head to one side, hair sliding across his face, and we're going to have to come back to the handcuffs issue later, because his hair's too damn pretty for me to keep my hands out of it all night.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine."

"Tighter than that?"

"Could."

He pulls on the strap. Sliding towards another notch, and there, that'll take me to tunnel vision and graying light and the sparkles at the edge of what I can see, if he holds it there. Or locks it into place.

He doesn't. He works back two notches, and slides the end of the strap through the loop that holds it neatly in place against my neck. "Do you mind if I back off?"

"A little," I say. I can feel my words, but they don't hurt. They just rasp through my throat, against that steady pressure. Not enough to be anything serious. Just enough that I can't forget it's there.

"Sorry," he says, and kisses me. "We can do more with that another time." He clips the leash into place on the collar. "Ready?"

Mostly. "Of course."

And he asks, "Want to follow along?" while he's climbing back onto the bed, the leash wrapped three times around his hand and dragging me up--or it would be dragging, if I weren't so ready to follow.

If I weren't so ready to follow, would he even try this? Good question. Maybe one to ask another time, when there's no chance of the answer bothering me.

Lanthano takes me up to the top of the bed, a process that I could accomplish more gracefully without my hands behind my back. But once we're there, he nudges me over onto my side, and unlocks the cuffs. (Not much of a lock at all.) "On again, or should they stay off?" he asks, dangling them from one finger by the chain.

"Back on," I say, because the real answer is _whatever you like_ and he will, in fact, like it better this way. It's an odd sort of game that we're playing, where you win by figuring out how to please the other person, but I think I could get used to it. And I'll like it better--or be somewhat more comfortable with it, though I wouldn't say I'm uncomfortable now, despite earlier topics of conversation--once I figure out what Lanthano's getting out of this, beyond the sex. Because _that's_ easy enough to get in less complicated ways.

He snaps one cuff back on, and arranges my hands over my head, the chain looped through a bar on the headboard. "Comfortable?" he asks, when he closes the second.

"Enough. The only reason to have a headboard like that is to tie things to it, isn't it?"

"Mm, pretty much." He sits back on his heels. "Less 'things' and more 'people', but, yes. How are you doing?"

"Fine?"

"Little bit impatient?"

"Maybe a touch," I say, and let the acid reach my voice, because it gets another grin out of him. "I'm not all that delicate."

"You're not," he says, and leans in, hands to my knees. "Delicate involves a lot more discussion beforehand, rather than in the middle." He turns his hand around, taking up another loop of the leash. "How are you feeling on the clothing front?"

"Somewhat overly so?" I need to stop answering in a way that sounds like a question. "I could do with less clothing involved in this stage of affairs."

"And would you rather this happen your way, or mine?"

Given how much I like this pair of jeans, which are a nice slate gray that doesn't stand out too much at night... "Yours. If I start breaking too much of _my_ clothing, Zabina would notice, and complain. Or just...judge. Silently. In that way where you know she disapproves but she's decided not to say anything about it, because you should know better without any need for her to make it explicit."

Lanthano unbuttons my jeans, and starts working them down my legs. "I do indeed know that way. How's that whole setup working for you?"

"Working for Zabina? It's--" The default word for blowing off the whole question is _fine_ , and I'm a little distracted by his hands on my legs at that, but he asked for reasonably honest. Besides, too much _fine_ makes it sound like I'm hiding something. "Pretty good, most of the time. Sort of confusing other times. I'm tired of learning languages and nowhere _near_ caught up on even the first set of them, much less all the others she wants me to learn, but she's the best supervisor I've had. Which is not saying much, but even so." I hold onto the bars of the headboard to haul up my weight for a moment, to help Lanthano pull my jeans the rest of the way off. "It's not bad. I'd like more work and less training, but any kind of Role would seem a bit slow after--how I used to do things."

"So you should ask for more work," Lanthano says. Where his clothing was thrown aside, mine gets folded and set down on the floor in a neat pile. What's left of my clothing, anyway. "You'd be less bored, and she'd appreciate the request."

"Do you think she'd let me slow down on the languages, if I had more work?"

"Never." He doesn't even try to sound sympathetic. "How's the sex going?"

I have to take a moment to figure out how he means that and then a few other things before I can even come up with a useful answer. "It's not? I mean it--hasn't really come up."

Lanthano sits on my knees, rolling his hand back and forth with the leash around it. Not so much tugging as making for a steady, constant shift between tension and release on the collar. "Why not?"

An easier one to answer. "She hasn't tried anything. I haven't tried anything. I've been--"

"Why not?" he asks, the first time he's really interrupted.

"I don't know why she hasn't. I just--I haven't--" Who asks these sorts of questions? I mean. Lanthano, obviously. And now I'm wondering if it's the sort of question that other people in the company would ask, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to want to know, and talk about. While in bed, or otherwise. "She's my _supervisor_. Even humans know that sleeping with the boss tends to make things complicated."

Lanthano winds himself forward, until his hand's in a ball of leash right up at my throat, and his knees are pressed in against my hips. "Do you think she'd treat you worse, if you were?"

"No, just..." There are many excellent arguments for what I'm trying to say, and I could probably come up with at least two of them if he weren't sitting right there. "Isn't it a better idea to not fuck with something that's working out okay for once?"

"You want my honest advice, Leo?" He waits for my nod, though I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical question at heart. "Get into bed with her. You know how to make that happen. You'll understand her better, she'll understand you better, and, come on, you could stand to get laid more often. It can't all be vacation trips or nothing. You don't want sex with humans, that's fine! Coworkers are there to help you out with what you need. Inside the company, you can be sure no one's in bed with you just to steal your secrets or set you up for failure. It's safe."

"That's a lot of advice."

"Would you rather fuck than talk?"

" _Could_ we?"

"We could," Lanthano says brightly, shades of Yuliang in his tone, and smiles at me without making a single move until _just_ before I--do something. Probably just say something annoyed. At which point he leans in to kiss me, quick and sharp with teeth across my lip. (Not hard enough to break the skin. Regan would've left me bleeding.) "Should I have gotten out the blindfold?"

" _No_. You should be--doing something. Or letting me do something. _Pick one_."

"Well, since you asked so nicely..." Lanthano spools the leash out, sitting back. "Which would you prefer?"

"Either. Whichever."

He tilts his head to the side--I've seen that move too often to think it's anything but a deliberate pose, and yet it works on me every damn time--and smiles sweetly. "What do you want, Leo?"

Because it's not about the questions, for him. It's not even about what I answer, not the way it was with Penny. (Not a useful direction for thoughts. Let's set it aside for now, and forever.) What he wants is his hand on the collar, and me saying _tighter_. Control and focus without ever pushing past the points where I say no.

I don't even know what I think about that. The nice basic answer is that I'm _for it_ , so let's go with that and not examine the details just yet.

And he will wait, further away than I'd like, with that charming smile, until I give him an answer. A reasonably honest one.

Well. Fine.

"I want you to do something, _before_ I get completely fed up, and it should be done to me, and while I leave the details up to your imagination, my suggestion is you see what'll make me break something I probably shouldn't. Though it won't be the cuffs, because you did ask me nicely not to, and that was a reasonable kind of question."

"A little vague on the details," Lanthano says, "but I can work with that."


	26. In Which I Get No Sleep

My first mistake of the morning is misgendering the marmalade, when I ask Zabina to pass it during breakfast. She waits for me to correct myself before I get any jam; but once that's dealt with, she says, "You haven't been getting enough practice."

"Second try's the charm?" I took a hard fall last night--not enough to break anything, just enough to leave some bruises and scrapes and be embarrassing on my return home--and I'm not really in the mood to argue about food. Or what it's called.

"It's not merely that you try to render all words in the masculine form," Zabina says, "and don't think that mumbling covers that up. You're re-using your vocabulary when you should be expanding it. If you don't know the right word for something, ask."

"If I'm communicating clearly--"

"Clarity is one aspect of communication worth focusing on. Not the only one." And Zabina isn't in a mood to go easy on me, so I shut up before I inspire a more serious lecture than the one this is already shaping up to be. "The 'red jam' may indicate what you want on the table, but it also makes it clear that you've forgotten the word for strawberries. People _will_ judge you on how you speak."

"I'm reading the books well enough." With a dictionary at hand, but that's not unreasonable.

"And if you lived in a world populated entirely by books, or people who printed out their sentences and waited for you to look up all the words, this would suffice." She checks the time on her phone. "An hour a day of speaking with Giovanna in French. You can divide it into two sessions if you prefer, and pick whatever topic you like. We'll review your Mandarin vocabulary tonight. Have you looked at the new character list I sent you?"

"The one you sent before I went to see Lanthano?"

"No," she says, neither impatient nor willing to relent for an instant. "The one I sent last night. Check your email before breakfast. Have the first five ready by dinner." She sweeps the phone into her purse, and stands up. "Your linework is good, when you put in the study to remember which lines to draw."

Giovanna's waiting in the doorway, and they're in conversation before Zabina's reached it. Places to go, things to do. Roles to maintain. I finish my red-jammed roll and the hot tea that's the household's concession to my dislike of coffee.

I'll drink the coffee Ash makes for me, but that's different.

I have to backtrack to my room to find my phone. It's scuffed and the screen's cracked, and that's without being dropped as hard as I was last night. (I should've watched my footing. It's easier to recover from a bad grip than a lost foot.) I check my email, and get the character set Zabina sent printing downstairs. Answer email from Lanthano and Guo briefly, delete a set of cat gifs from Yuliang, review a general update for employees from Captain Dio, the usual sort of thing. I'm getting better at remembering these things.

Well, let's be honest, in the privacy of my own head. My memory isn't that bad, except around Trauma. But it's tempting to let things I dislike slide so long as I think I can get away with it. Like the way I've never been very good at picking locks, no matter how hard Zhune pushed me to learn the technique better, because I'd rather just break the damn things...

The email requirements aren't going away. I should work out how to be a good employee, and do that. There's not a lot of room for promotion, but I'm not looking for any. I can just...stay here. Solid and locked into place. The way most demons do, if they find a decent job. A lot of people would kill for a job as good as this one, and put a lot more work into learning languages as they've been told to, and not...quibble.

I sprawl across the bed, and fiddle with my phone until I convince it to call another continent.

"Hel _lo_ , this is Ash!"

"Hey, Ash. It's Leo. How have you been?"

"Leo!" Whether or not it's genuine, the enthusiasm in his voice makes me feel better. "I was starting to _worry_ , that's how I've been. Did you even get my review of that last play? And are you sure you want to keep going on this whole Shakespeare kick? The stories are fine, and some of the wordplay is good, but getting through those lines gives me a headache after a while. Maybe we could jump a few centuries forward. How have _you_ been?"

It's good to hear his voice. (And not just because I can talk in English for a while.) "I can't check that email address anymore, but I can give you a new one to send it to. We can swap off Shakespeare for a while. I thought we should try at least some of his plays on principle. How do you feel about sonnets?"

"At least two hundred years more recent. Three hundred, if we're doing poetry. The more recent the better, there."

"You say that now, but you haven't tried reading postmodernist poetry." I roll over on my side, my head on my arm. This room's always too big or too small, depending on which vessel I'm wearing. Too big, right now. Odd, since the height difference isn't all that much. Six inches between the two. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in this space, surrounded by all these things other people have decided are appropriate to my Role and status and the sort of person I'm supposed to become. "Maybe we can do some Frost. He's so down-to-earth it almost wraps around to pretentious again, but it's good stuff."

"Whichever you pick, I'll try." He's quiet for a moment, with the small sounds of his apartment--footsteps on the floor, the rattle of a cup against the counter--reaching through the phone. "Seriously, though. How have you been?"

"I went through a bad break-up, and joined a new company. It's been weird. Better, but...weird. People want different things here than I'm used to." I roll over until I'm almost face-down on the bedspread, so that I don't have to look at these walls. I should've swapped vessels before calling. I'd rather be using the other voice for this conversation. "It's not as bad as changing Words."

"Words are creepy," Ash says, light and casual in the way only a Free Lilim can be about topics like that. "Big concepts trying to dig roots down in your soul so that they can grow bigger in other places. _I_ wouldn't take one if they paid me." Which is saying something, given how much attention he gives to the bottom line. "Are these new people taking care of you?"

"Yeah. They have...they're good about keeping employees functional. Quality over quantity hiring practices, it's a nice change of pace."

"Good, but I mean--security side of things, you're in a good place? Someone would notice if you disappeared, right?"

That's not the sort of question I usually get from Ash, who delights in stories of near-death adventures and things exploding behind me as I run from the scene of the crime. "Within hours. Ash, has Zhune been bothering you?"

"He stopped by once or twice."

I sit up on the bed, and find I'm looking for my shoes. Which makes no sense, with an ocean between us and what do I think I would _do_ , anyway? Where in this conversation does anything imply I should get moving towards a problem that feels like it's my fault? "Are you okay?"

"I thought of changing the locks, but it's not like it would help, would it? I'm _fine_ , Leo, don't stress it. We talked things out like reasonable adults, and I Geased him to stay the fuck away from me for a while. And if you have people watching out for you, it's not like we have to worry about anything."

"I'm sorry I got you into this." I leave the bed, and pace over to the window, where I can stare through pine needles out at a blue morning sky. "I'd offer to help, but--it's not like he ever listened to me before."

"I know. Don't get all wound up over it. He's not going to get anything out of harassing me, you have people watching out for you, and I get the impression you're not located near me anymore, either. Which I guess will help you keep your distance from him, too."

"Not so close, no." I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder so that I can haul the window open. There's enough space to that garden that I can sit on the window ledge and talk, and feel like I'm getting at least as much privacy as I would be in my room.

I wonder why the room feels too big, and the outside world doesn't. Something about scale and function and--I don't know. I'll figure it out some other time.

"If you ever do come back through the city," and Ash has decided that New York is The City, in a way Shal-Mari probably ought to be for a demon made and raised there, "stop by to say hello. Bring friends! That one I talked to earlier, he seemed nice enough."

"He's nice enough," I say. My back to one side of the windowsill, my feet at the other, and I'm balanced between inside and out. Like that one man in the story who could only be killed when stepping between river and shore at twilight, and there was some sort of goat involved... I forget the details. "I'm not sure if I should introduce the two of you, though. Either you'd fight like cats or you'd wander off discussing fashion and forget about me entirely."

"Never," Ash says. "So he's cute?"

"Impudite."

"Which would be a yes."

"Don't you have his file?"

"Looking up the really interesting details costs," Ash says lightly, and, oh, he _spent_ on finding me. Or a way to contact me again. That's something I should've considered, and...he would take it the wrong way if I said that I owed him. He's been clear on this point before. No debts between friends except those agreed to.

I wonder if it would be easier, being a Lilim. Knowing all of your debts exactly, down to the hour, and being entirely sure of what you could enforce, and what people really wanted from you.

Probably not. Everything good comes with its own price.

"I'll see if I can arrange an introduction, but no promises. Are we on for Frost?"

"Sure, but we should do something with a real story next. Actual adventure."

"I'd recommend something from Dumas, but at this point I'd feel obliged to read it in the original French."

Ash laughs. "Why not? Isn't he the one with all the swordfights? It'd be fun."

"More fun if you don't need to check a dictionary twice a sentence." And wouldn't that make Zabina happy? Showing a little damn initiative in the area she wants me to focus on more--it didn't take me long to figure out that even if the company's language is Mandarin, _her_ preferred language is French--and I'd have a good excuse for doing more with text instead of the spoken language, where nothing sounds like it's spelled. "How about we do Frost and Dumas? You read him in English, I'll read him in French, you can listen to me complain about irregular verbs every chapter. Do you want bloody complicated revenge, or swordfights for the sake of the monarchy?"

"Swordfights," Ash says, without hesitation. "Do you know how to use a sword?"

"Hold the part that isn't sharp, try to make the people you don't like intersect with the part that is."

"A true master of weaponry."

"Hey, you know it. So long as it's an imaginary sword, I'm deadly with it. Now if only I could arrange to only meet enemies in the Marches..." Giovanna's pulling back into the driveway, having deposited Zabina somewhere in the city for daytime appointments. "I need to go practice exciting second languages. Third, I guess, if you count Helltongue."

"Maybe I'll learn French too," Ash says. "I need another hobby, and it's either that or starting a container garden on the balcony."

"Weren't you doing home brewing?"

"Don't ask," he says. "And don't be a stranger. Call me once in a while so that I know you're okay. Or call me to tell me about the exciting things you did while you weren't okay."

"I'll try," I say. Which is a promise of a sorts. It's enough to satisfy the both of us, which is half the reason for making promises at all.

#

It's a good thing I'm not desperately in need of being liked, because Giovanna doesn't like me. This was clear within the first week and hasn't changed since. She's exquisitely polite, slightly more deferential than required, and has not let so much as an impolite expression reach her face.

If she liked me, she wouldn't feel obliged to lie about her reactions to me.

With Zabina out in the city, Giovanna's taken over her office. She's the very model of a modern secretary, every gram of her prim and proper and professional, even though I'm sure her relationship with Zabina is rather less professional than mine. I'm not sure if I resent that or envy that or scorn that or--really, I shouldn't care, and yet I do. It's odd. Some things just shouldn't matter to me, and what my supervisor does in spare time is among them.

She looks up from the computer when I walk in, her hands poised over the keyboard exactly as those posture guides want you to hold them. "Can I help you, Rachel?" My Role is still worth little more than the cost of my fake IDs, but Zabina is of the opinion that it'll build faster if I use it with actual humans. Given how seldom I go to the city in this body, well. That's Giovanna.

"Zabina says we should talk." I don't have to think about every word of the sentence anymore, but I still have to think about my sentences before they come out. I try to talk normally, I start falling over my own words. How do human children _stand_ it, to be continually misunderstood and misunderstanding? I suppose they don't know any better.

"Yes, of course." She pushes her chair back from the desk. "Where would you like to sit? The patio?"

The table where Zabina quizzes me about French every morning? I don't think the suggestion is a coincidence. "That's fine," I say, and smile pleasantly. The way I do at store clerks and police officers and other sorts of people who don't know better.

Giovanna is pretty sure she knows better. No wonder we don't get along.

She stops by the kitchen to grab us two bottles of beer. Polite. Considerate, even. I ought to appreciate that, as I've had to deal with all manner of sly or stubborn or outright _stupid_ Hellsworn, and she's none of the above. She does her job like she cares about doing it properly.

But then, there are a lot of things I ought to do and I don't, so what's one more on the list? At least I'm doing my homework.

When we sit down at the table, I resonate both caps off the bottle, and watch her face. She has that lack-of-reaction that I've used myself. Mostly around people who could be dangerous if they got the wrong sort of reaction, but she can't be worried about me. Zabina has never had to give explicit instructions about what I shouldn't do to her secretary. The tacit limits are obvious.

"Thank you," she says. Modeling proper behavior for the feral student to imitate. (At least Zabina's stopped using the _raised by wolves_ comments in front of me. Mostly.) She has a tiny sip of her beer. "What would you like to talk about?"

I could be banal, or I could be cruel. Neither sounds like a good way to spend an hour of conversation in a language I don't know very well. So I set aside all of the topics that would lend themselves well to either point, and look for one where I have some relevant vocabulary and a modicum of interest. "Why do you think humans sleep?"

Giovanna blinks. She was braced for something worse. "We sleep because we get tired." A shrug, for what even infants know by instinct. "What is there to say about sleep?"

"Plenty." I have a swig of my beer, setting my own thoughts in order. "Humans sleep, and celestials don't. That is, we can, but not the same way. You sleep and you go unconscious. You move through dreams you barely remember and don't control. You wake up in the morning and you..." I have to stop to work out my syntax. "Your minds and moods change. Every night, you're allowed to draw a line between yesterday and tomorrow, between what you felt then and what you'll feel next. You can _reboot_."

"It's not so grand as all that," Giovanna says. "It's only sleep. If you go to bed angry, you're likely to get up feeling the same way."

"Likely. Maybe. Do you wake up in the morning, and the anger is already there? Or do you remember it?"

"I suppose I remember it," Giovanna says. "It's still there. Sleep doesn't erase the facts."

"No, but it can..." I hate that I have to keep stopping and finding the words. "You can see the, ah, the facts different. Differently. The vector changes. We can't. _There's no way out but through._ " That last was in English, and I hurry on before her tiny frown can turn into a politely worded critique. "Do you think it makes a difference, for humans and celestials? When we're in a thought or feeling, we keep on having it until it's done. Or until distractions. There's no break that's--" I wave a hand. "Made to do. What's the word?"

"Obligatory? Forced?"

"Either of those. Think of how that changes the facts."

"Not the facts," Giovanna says. "It changes the..." She hesitates, and it's not because she's searching for vocabulary. It's the concept that has her paused, and this is the first conversation we've had that I'd as soon keep on going a while longer. "It changes a person's perspective on the facts, but not the facts themselves."

"Change the perspective, change the facts. A perspective _is_ a fact. What people feel and believe makes them do things. Ask any Habbalite. Every day, every sleep, makes a little change to a human's--" I'm groping for the word again.

"Perspective?"

"I _know_ that one. The thing inside the head. Thinking." I've heard the word several times, and it's not coming to me. This would be easier in English, in Helltongue... even worse in Mandarin, I suppose.

"Mind?"

"That." I pause for more beer, resorting what I mean and how to put it into the words I have. "You get those little changes. Every day. Celestials don't. Most days I think we're so different because of age, Bands, Choirs. Words. Those make us...concentrate." Not quite the word I want, but close enough. "Maybe sleep is almost enough to explain the differences. The little chances to change yourself and see the world differently, so often, that we don't get. Once we see it one way, we don't change without some reason."

"It's not that easy," she says, all clipped and precise. There's an accent trying to fight its way through her voice, and it's from neither Germany nor France, as I know the tendencies of those languages. (Or maybe it's from a corner of one or the other of them that I haven't heard of? But, no. I don't think that's it.) "If the facts don't change, what does it matter if we look at them again after a pause? Do you come back to read the same book, the same words, and have a completely different reaction, because you looked away for a day?"

"Maybe. I don't know. What's it like to sleep?"

"It's nothing," she says. "Nothing and some dreams, which are only a way of thinking about the day all over again. So you see, we never do break away, any more than you do. What's it like when you sleep, Rachel? However you do."

"It's like getting drunk, or beaten unconscious," I say, "because that's how it occurs." And it says something about the kind of vocabulary I've been learning that the hardest word to remember in that sentence is "beaten."

"You can sleep, though," Giovanna says. She's forgotten to be deferential. I like the conversation better this way. "I've seen it done, and people speak of it sometimes. Demons like you will go to sleep. What for, if you don't need to?"

"It's an escape route, if a very dangerous one, in certain types of emergencies. Go to sleep, then make your vessel..." I can't think of the proper word. "...go away. You make no disturbance, and you're not on the corporeal anymore. Dangerous, because you're in the--what do you call them in French? The place for dreams."

"That isn't real," Giovanna says. "They're in your head."

"Of course it's real. It's not the kind of real that can kill your body, usually, and most humans spend all their time in these circles--spheres? These little places for their own dreams, where it's hard to get at them. But it's still _real_." I find that I'm gesturing with my bottle, and drink from it instead. "There are _nations_ in that place. Types of people who aren't humans or celestials who stay there, who live there, who are made and die there, without bothering with this world. The world of the dreams is as real as South America, and has far more people in it."

"You've been there?"

"A few times, yes." I slouch down in my chair. "It's a dangerous place. Nightmares at one side, Dreams at the other, neither of them would like _us_. The people who live there, they don't like us."

"Because no one likes Theft," Giovanna says.

"Because all the forces of Heaven hate Hell indiscriminately, and all the forces of Hell hate each other with nuanced, political discrimination." I grimace, and swap back to French. "Yes, I know, English, but how would I say that in French? Not easily. Sometimes the communication is more important than the practice. In the Marches," and I will have to ask Zabina what the proper term is for that in her favorite language, "the people who live there hate Heaven and Hell both. Heaven a little more, but not much more."

"Because they don't like being told who to worship, or what to do?"

"Because a time ago--hundreds of years, I don't know the date, Heaven decided to murder them all. They didn't succeed. And more people of dreams are made every day, just like with humans or demons. But they remember what Heaven did, and they don't like it."

"Why would the angels want to kill things in dreams?" Giovanna asks. She's leaning forward. As if maybe I'm not that terrifying after all. "Why try to kill all of them?"

"The dream people aren't angels. That's half the way to a reason to kill anyone, for angels. They aren't humans, but they deal with some humans. The angels don't want anyone to speak with humans except for angels and other humans. It's a..." I wave my hand. "When one business owns all of one kind of thing?"

"A monopoly?"

"That. Angels want a monopoly for dealing with humans. Demons and the dream people, they deal with humans, so the angels want to stop all of them. Demons fight, but we mostly work together against the angels. The dream people all fight with each other, as much as humans do, and they were easier to be attacked." That didn't come out quite right, but it should get the point across. "No one talked to you about these things?"

"The history of the secret war for humanity wasn't part of the employee briefing," Giovanna says, and for an instant I _like_ her, and that thin little smile. But she's too good at being polite and attentive for it to stay for long, even if she's still interested, and maybe thinking she shouldn't be. "Are there more people out there than that? Humans and angels and demons, and then the...dream people."

"Ethereals," I say, giving her the word in English. "However you say that in French. Zabina will know. Only those three sides."

"Four," she says. "Humans, angels, demons, these 'ethereals'."

"Three sides. Corporeal, celestial, ethereal. Body and soul and spirit."

"In French, please," she says, which I should not hold against her, but it still stomps down on that small flame of like.

"Meat and self and mind." I wave a hand, and drink my beer. "There, my argument. Humans are different from everyone else because of sleep, and no one else does it the same way. Though I did hear from a friend that things that aren't human do dream. Machines, maybe animals. I never lived in those places they dreamed up."

"Places?"

"The places made of dreams, where the people of dreams live. You can build a city with your mind. Set all the buildings in order, set down the streets, draw the lines where people walk. Build it inside a river that's a circle and never stops flowing. Set it in the clouds, or beneath a sky of fire. The world can be what you make it. What you think it."

"Humans can't reach that place?"

I shrug, and slouch down low in the chair. Zabina would give me such a look, but she's not here, and I'm not trying to impress her right now. Just get my homework done. "Some might. Some of the--what do you call them? The humans who do--" I don't have enough words to even describe the words I want, and I lapse into English again. "Sorcerers might, and maybe Soldiers working for Nightmares or Dreams, which I wouldn't recommend on either side, given the way--"

"In French, Leo."

I check my watch. "I should go work on those characters," I say. In the language requested. "When will Zabina return?"

"An hour before dinner." Giovanna stands when I do. "I'll be in the office, if you need anything."

"Yeah, I know where to find you." I flash her a quick smile, and take the beer to my room with me. Where I _do_ spend a solid hour working on those characters, tedious as it is.

I do my homework. I'm a fucking responsible student. I don't spend much time remembering what I've built in the Marches, and how I would build it better if I had it to do over again. That gaudy, sparkling staircase spiraling up into the sky...

I don't know why I spent so much time on any of that detail. During that trip. No one appreciated it anyway.


	27. In Which I Am An Agreeable Traveling Partner

Usually Giovanna's asleep when I get back from climbing. Tonight I step into a lit hallway, and she's slumped against a wall, groggy over a cup of tea. Peppermint, not even anything caffeinated. "Evening," she says, and frowns at me. "Did you fall again?"

"No, it's from last week." The downsides of swapping vessels this often: I'm not only constantly low on Essence, but the one in storage doesn't heal until I put it back on. "Something come up? Or someone?"

"Someone. I don't know who." She drains her cup in one inelegant gulp. "Zabina said to stop by the office when you got in."

Which suggests it's a coworker in there--and if it's no one that Giovanna recognizes, probably a Shedite--unless Zabina is about to try to encourage making friends in Theft again. I've gotten pretty good at dodging those attempts; she hasn't quite hit the point of making it an outright order, and if I keep dodging, she may give up. There are a few people in the company who I like, and that's probably plenty. Never did get along well with other Magpies. Demons. People.

"I'll go," I say, as I realize Giovanna is going to stare at me pointedly until she gets a response. "Did you get up just to pass on that message?"

"Good night, Leo," she says, and walks away. Not at her best when roused from sleep, the poor kid, and that _was_ a retreat from some comment about how she wouldn't have to if I checked phone messages regularly. Maybe we can put together breakfast without her to make up for it.

At the door to the office, I pause for a moment on the other side, listening to the voices. Low enough that I can't make out words without pressing my ear to the door, and that often ends poorly. I knock, and wait for Zabina's response before stepping inside.

She's in evening wear, by which I mean what she wears around the time mortal visitors aren't expected. Slacks and a sweater, which look good on her--everything does, she's as expert as an Impudite in that--and are still a cut more formal than what I'm wearing. The man standing in the room (and not sitting, even now) was, I think, dressed hastily in the middle of the night. Not an uncoordinated mess, but his clothing has that air of having been thrown on quickly from a series of drawers, and then a coat swept over it to hide the mess. When I step inside, his gaze cuts to me, and he already doesn't approve. It's not an expression that fits easily on that face; can't be forty yet, and it's already got the patterns for more easy-going expressions than that.

"Evening, Zabina," I say, with a nod for her. "Adrian." A nod for him. I drop down into the available chair, since no one else is using it, and because my right leg still hurts from that one fall.

"You've met?" Zabina taps a fingernail against the desk. "Convenient. We can skip the introductions."

"Once," Adrian says. "He was in a less damaged body at the time. Do you spend your nights falling off tall objects?"

"Yes," I say, because I'm most familiar with that tone of voice from Katherine. When she's trying to start a fight. I turn my most attentive and polite expression towards Zabina, like a truly dutiful younger demon ready for instruction. Isn't about to fool her, but it's the principle of the thing. "Anything I can help you with?"

Zabina makes a tiny gesture with her fingers, which could mean either _don't taunt the Knight who already dislikes you_ or _tone down the eager subservience, no one here will believe it._ Comes out to about the same thing. "Adrian needs backup," she says. "You need work." Her next gesture is all in the wrist, and perfectly clear. Two great tastes that taste great together.

"You misunderstand," Adrian says, every word precise. "I asked for backup, and you're suggesting I take your pet for a walk."

"I'm not sending my secretary," Zabina says. She projects a complete lack of concern, and so I do the same. I can project dutiful interest with the best of them. "Nor am I following you about myself when I have my own work, and an experienced student available."

"Experienced in anything done while clothed?" So apparently Adrian is still annoyed at Yuliang's annoyance when he interrupted, or...something. He can't work for this company and be against people having sex in general. His head would explode.

"If you haven't read his file," Zabina says, and now her tone says that she is annoyed at a failing in the man standing across the desk, "that's one thing, but you should be _peripherally_ aware of his skill sets by now. You know who he worked with."

"Yes, and we all remember what Zhune's previous partner was like. And how he picks them. 'Pretty and crazy' isn't what I'm looking for when I'm on the _job_ , Zabina." 

I wonder how many of Zhune's friends looked at me about the same way. Most of them? Those who weren't explicit about it, anyway. I smile pleasantly at Adrian, who is, let's just thank God and Lucifer both for this one, not my supervisor.

"He had enough sense to leave," Zabina says. Measured. She is not much happier with this conversation than I am. According to Guo's notes, that's Adrian's speciality: making sure no one leaves a conversation with him feeling good about anything. I can see his skill in it already. "If you find his skills on the job inadequate, you may certainly register a complaint with his supervisor." She taps a finger on her desk. "If you feel that he doesn't have the skill set required for any company employee, you may take that up with the one who hired him."

Adrian's mouth flattens further. First round to Zabina. "You don't have an undamaged one stashed in the garage, do you?"

"If you had called ahead, that could have been dealt with. Take the backup available to you, Adrian." She smiles, if that's the word for the brief baring of teeth. "You can give me an informed critique afterward."

"I'll pick him up in an hour," Adrian says, one dismissive gesture as he heads for the door. "Maybe _something_ will be ready by then."

"Do call if you need a loan of any other resources," Zabina says, bland enough to be insulting. The door snaps shut, not quite a slam, without any further response from the Shedite.

She drops the bland, turning to me immediately. "When did you meet him?"

"When I was visiting Yuliang. Does _anyone_ like him? He seems to be the least popular person in the company."

"He gets the work done," Zabina says, which is not an answer. "Can you work with him for a day or two? No longer than three. He has deadlines."

"Sure. I've dealt with worse." I scrub the back of my neck, and try not to scratch at the scab just below on my shoulder. It's reached the itching stage. "What kind of job is this?"

"Some sort of physical infiltration of facilities." She's dismissive, by reflex alone, of anything that involves running around instead of slipping the information out of people so delicately they never realize what they lost. "The kind no one is supposed to do without a second employee there in case of emergencies. Likely he'll make you stand lookout somewhere dull, and you'll find the whole thing tedious, but it'll get you out of the house."

A definite plus; we can agree on that. "What sort of prep is he expecting me to do?"

"He expects to criticize you on your lack of preparation for anything that occurs," Zabina says dryly. "You couldn't possibly get ready in a manner he'd find acceptable. Pack a change of clothes and a book, and the travel battery for your phone."

"Maybe I should've learned Corporeal Healing, if it keeps coming up."

"If he cares all that terribly, he can sing it himself." She's silent a moment, though it's not yet a dismissal. "For the duration of this assignment, take his orders the way you would mine." There's a flicker of a smile. "Perhaps with slightly less argument. Otherwise, you deal with him as you would any Knight in the company. Comply with any reasonable requests, or ones that are work-related and not in conflict with existing instructions."

I scrub a hand through my hair. Sitting here always makes me fidgety. Like I ought to have a notebook and pencil ready. "How do I tell a reasonable request from an unreasonable one?"

"Use your best judgment," Zabina says, and that's really _not_ an answer. But it's the best she's going to give me.

Everything's a test. Adrian's just a particularly annoying sort of one.

#

The hour turns out to be two and a half. Enough time for me to settle down on my own windowsill--the night's not so cold as to make that uncomfortable, since I'm dressed for travel anyway--and get through most of a chapter of _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ via regular consultations of a French-English dictionary, and a fair amount of guessing from context.

Giovanna knocks on my door at six, with a cup of tea and a plate of breakfast bits. There's no need for it when I'm not wearing the vessel attached to my Role, but it'd be rude to point this out when she got up early to deliver it. So I give the usual thanks, and watch for headlights pointing at the garage.

Now, with two and a half hours to kill in a city the size of the one near us, I could find a good car. Set aside an hour and a half for some other business, remove the advantage of being a Shedite who can just possess a driver who already has the right sort of vehicle, and I could still acquire a _decent_ car. Adrian shows up in a fucking SUV. It's a Saturn Vue, or whatever they call it in Europe; the Opel, I think, and whatever the name, it's still a wallowing behemoth I'd rather set on fire than get into.

I climb down the side of the house, and reach the courtyard at the same time that Adrian's climbing out of the car. He's picked up a female host this time, and one whose face suits his expressions somewhat better.

He slams the door, and looks around. Does not see me where I'm standing, which is, sure, kinda gratifying. And me without a Song turned on or anything. Under some circumstances, I'd just hang out right where I am, and wait to see how long it took him to spot me.

But this is my first _proper_ job for the company, as Zabina sees it, and I'm being graded. Deliberately antagonizing the T.A. will not score me any extra points. So I stroll out of my place by the wall as if I've been walking forward all along, without any surreptitious pausing. "Time to go?" It's an inane question, because I'd like to find out exactly where we stand on the hostility meter before I get in that car.

"That's it?" Our hostility rating: high. "You intend to get in the car with the first person to show up, without checking for any kind of confirmation of identity?"

"If someone who _isn't_ you shows up late, knowing you wouldn't have arrived first, and imitating your body language, then I can't see how asking for a look at their driver's license is going to help." I resist the urge to roll my eyes, as he might actually be able to see that now that I'm standing in an area illuminated by the headlights. "If there's a secret company handshake, no one's passed it on to me yet."

"You really think you're so clever," he says. "Try to restrain yourself, before you take down any real work." He doesn't so much toss me the keys as fling them in my direction. Catching them is reflex, even if it would be entertaining, in its own way, to let them hit the ground. "You _do_ know how to drive, don't you? A manual transmission, like civilized people use?"

"It's come up once or twice." I take to the driver's side, and don't have to adjust the seat much; he's picked a host who's near my height. "Where are we going?"

"I'll give you directions."

The level of trust in this relationship is overwhelming. I wait for him to get in. And then wait a moment longer. "Seatbelt?"

His stare is incredulous, which makes me feel a little better about everything. "How about you attempt to drive without hitting anything," he says, "and we work from there? Can you handle that much?"

I shrug, and start the car. What a lumbering tank this thing is, and without any of the benefits of an actual tank. (Though I only got to drive one of those once, and it wasn't half as much fun as you would expect.) "If we get rammed by an angry Warrior, I suppose this brick will hold to the road decently. So long as it doesn't decide to flip." And then I shut up rather than lecturing anyone on how to read safety test statistics properly, and that means not by only comparing them to over SUVs in their same class. It's not like that conversation would go anywhere useful.

"Do you expect angels to fling themselves at you?" Adrian asks. "Aim towards the city." He's tapping through a series of emails on his phone; in the dark, its screen is perfectly reflected in a window. I could read the subject lines if I cared to give it that much attention, and if they were in languages I knew. Not the host's own phone, I suspect.

"Sometimes it's demons." I shrug, and settle into the particular zen of driving towards an unknown destination. There's a certain satisfaction to just _wandering_ in a car, and while I can't get it here, following directions step by step is almost the same.

"Most of our jobs," Adrian says, because he is not the sort of person who can let me drive in peace, or let _anyone_ get in the last word, "are conducted in such a way that we aren't attacked regularly by hostile parties en route. You should try it."

"I'll keep that in mind." Either he doesn't know what I used to get up to with Zhune, or he hasn't thought through the implications. (Or he knows and understands, and is complaining about it on principle.) There is no good way to regularly rob Tethers on short deadlines and _not_ draw some attention. If the Boss had wanted those jobs handled slowly and carefully without anyone catching on, he wouldn't have assigned them to us. Or he would have given us more time. We got all the work that someone else had already botched, or needed to be done too fast for safety.

No wonder I went through that many vessels.

I get about ten minutes of peace and quiet before the next set of directions. Which are easy to follow, and suggest we're pointing towards France, if we're not stopping in this country. Maybe I'll actually be in a place where I can communicate in the local language. What fun.

"Has anyone ever discussed the benefits of discretion with you?" Adrian asks, right while I'm in the middle of a tricky merge that would be much easier in a lighter car with a more responsive wheel.

"What sort?" I ask, and do not sideswipe anyone, even some idiot who deserves it.

"Not alerting every celestial in a hundred kilometers to your presence. You could try that." This, when I haven't done anything noisier than switch vessels since I joined the company. Whatever axe he's grinding, it's not one I've given him a reason to pick out. "Or putting some thought into the long-term political consequences before blatantly antagonizing other celestials on either side. You may not have heard of this yet, but this is supposed to be a cold war."

"So I'm told."

"Pay attention, Destroyer. I don't intend to say this twice."

I would put good money on him coming up with new, tedious ways to harass me about these points at the slightest opportunity, but I try to look like I believe him. "Keep the noise down, keep the antagonism down, we'd all prefer that Michael and Baal don't jointly decide to hold the final battle in the middle of Paris because everyone's getting so noisy anyway, check."

"You think it's so easy," he says. "You aren't listening. One stupid choice from one stupid person makes weeks of cleanup for other people who were paying attention to the long-term consequences."

"Like that time the War hit a Lightning lab they shouldn't have," I say, "and I had to run in and fix things. Sure. I get the idea."

"I'm told they heard the disturbance for that one throughout the entire _state_ ," Adrian says, as if he's scored a point.

"They must've. Why Lightning would make a device that noisy is beyond me, and why the War would turn the damn thing on when I told them what a bad idea it was..." I shrug again. I understand exactly why Regan turned it on, but saying so probably isn't a good idea. She's quite easy to understand even when I don't agree with her, which is usually. "Were you working on that one?"

Adrian shoves his phone into a pocket. "Why would you think that?"

"Because working against Lightning directly, instead of humans, you don't send in Impudites. Too much chance of people noticing new faces and resonating, with all those Mercurians running around. You slide Shedim into the heads of the humans who'd be there anyway, if those are the two Bands you have to pick from, and do a lot of discreet watching where the host is walking around without even noticing they have a rider in their head. And Lightning is _risky_ , so it'd be a bad idea to send in anyone alone. You put a few people working on one project, you need someone in charge, and there's a limited number of Knights in the company. You're the one who does roaming work, instead of being focused on one geographical location. And it's not like Captain Dio was going to hit the corporeal for that kind of thing." I swap lanes to get out of the way of a black coupe that wants to go faster than is wise on this highway, and back when they've zipped past. "But there could be another Shedite who can direct a few coworkers and isn't officially a Knight, who I haven't met yet. Plenty of people I haven't met yet. Or an Impudite who sits back and doesn't get into direct contact with Lightning, while sifting the information the Shedim who are doing the boots on the ground work bring back. Hell, Zabina could have handled the job. That's why I asked, instead of assuming."

"And you would have managed the work better?" Adrian asks.

What an obvious trap. Does he really think I'm stupid enough to fall into that one? "Probably not. I've never managed anything more challenging than a fourth-grade classroom." I mean, there's the difficulty of wrangling Ferro and Nik, but neither of them was quite as challenging to deal with as two dozen fidgety children half an hour before lunch. "And there's no good way to plan for someone like Regan hitting a project. It's all very well to set up defenses against obvious attacks, but a sudden raid by the War isn't obvious. If it were, she wouldn't have been in charge of it."

"I suppose retrieving information is easier if you know the people who took it," Adrian says. He has the tone down pitch-perfect for implying I did something terrible and shameful with that knowing. Which only goes to confirm what I suspected: it doesn't matter _what_ details he gets, or what I say. He intends to use every piece of information as another line of attack.

In a way, it's freeing. Like dealing with Katherine in a hungry, tired meltdown on a car trip where she can't get to bed for hours yet. What I say is irrelevant.

Now, I could take that two different directions. The fun way is to bite back. Feed him information that leads him into dead ends of attack, imply sensitive points that I don't care about, and see how long I can keep him spinning around trying to find a sore point he can kick. There's the downside that he might actually _find_ one, but it'd make this drive more interesting than it'll otherwise be.

But I don't think Zabina would approve, and I'd just as soon save that tactic for when I'm more annoyed. So I go with the second route: the frictionless surface.

"I suppose so," I say.

"You must have made such friends in the War, before you left them."

"Quite likely," I say.

"So they didn't mind when Lightning showed up to shoot everyone? Or the part where you got away alive, and no one else did."

"Guess not."

"How convenient for you, that the angels let you walk away."

"Sure was."

I wonder how long I can keep on agreeing with everything he says before he gives up. Or starts shouting. There's a long road ahead, and only one way to find out.


	28. An Interlude, In Which Profanity Is Translated Very Loosely From Its Original Language

The only thing keeping Adrian from pitching the Calabite out of the car was knowing that he'd have to explain the decision to Chaixin.

And how would that whole fucking talk go? Yes, this seemed like a good idea. Yes, while we were driving. Yes, he was technically the one in the driver's seat at the time. Yes, I'm quite aware that he's under Zabina's fucking authority and was only loaned out to me, that was made clear, I _know_ , and she didn't have to listen to him, now, did she?

Yes, I do know how much replacement vessels cost.

Yes, I do remember that I'm supposed to take backup with me. But you didn't have to listen to him either, now, did you?

They stopped to fill the tank, and Adrian _thought_ about it. Swipe the keys from that fucking asshole's pocket, drive away, leave him at the station, let him find his own way home. No damage done, so how could Zabina complain? It was a test. A perfectly fair test. No Magpie who couldn't find his way home--while still in the same country, even--didn't deserve to be on the payroll. No vessel lost.

No fucking backup.

And wasn't that a joke? Ask for someone subtle, sharp-eyed, able to follow orders, and they handed him a Calabite who'd been all but kicked out of the War for insubordination. Who had spent the last decade frolicking through one of the more delicate geographical areas, politically speaking, with disturbance and destruction scattered in his wake. The sort of person Zhune would pick, and those ones always exploded, one way or another, and usually took a dozen bystanders out with them on the way.

Which was the big fucking mystery, summed up: what had possessed Chaixin, to take someone like that into the company? Wouldn't it have been easier to arrange an accident, if the whole point was to get some payback on the Djinn? Anyone who visited Stygia once in a while could have a useful accident. He would've been glad to help. It would've been so fucking easy, an outright pleasure, and instead he was stuck _working_ with this smug Freak who would not know _judicious use of limited resources_ if it stabbed him in the face.

Adrian kept that thought with him for several kilometers, in varying degrees of pictorial detail. One small comfort, and one small hope for the future. Not much of a hope, as Chaixin had made it perfectly clear that even broken employees would be retained and preserved as best possible, when everyone knew it would be more practical to recycle them for Essence and Forces--but that kept the wobblier people in the company happy, didn't it? So many coworkers who proved to be as sturdy as styrofoam at the first sign of real trouble, and who needed that kind of cosseting to retain some functionality.

Now there was one more wobbly little employee in need of babysitting, and if this one at least had enough Forces to not keel over at the first stiff wind or sharp word, that just meant the idiot could get himself into more trouble.

An inexperienced idiot who agreed with everything he said, as if this was some grand joke, as if he wouldn't _notice_ just how insincere that was, right up until they stumbled over the topic of the car being driven. Then there was a god damn monologue on the virtues one ought to seek in a vehicle used for purposes of Theft, and all the ways in which the current vehicle lacked these virtues.

"No," Adrian said at last. "Shut up. Shut _up_." He gripped the handle of the door, and contemplated the many reasons why throwing himself out of the car wasn't a good plan either. "How well the car handles in a chase when driving across rough terrain isn't even _relevant_. No one is chasing us. We're on a perfectly level road and surrounded by urban development. There will be no dramatic pursuit by shadowy forces, because this job has been set up in a competent fashion, unlike _any other_ you've ever worked on."

There was a brief, contemplative silence from the driver's seat.

"Well," said the Calabite at last, "I suppose you're right."

"About everything," Adrian said wearily, and longed for a quiet room and--the sorts of things he was not allowed to do to fellow employees, but which might produce some more honest, respectful responses from the man.

"About everything except the car, which remains terrible. But it's _adequate_ for standard driving purposes, if you really couldn't find anything better."

Adrian turned to look at the demon for a moment, and pictured--no, that was distracting. Pleasant, but not actually a way to solve the problem at hand. "Strictly speaking, you count as backup even if you're in the trunk."

"You don't have a trunk. See the aforementioned list of disadvantages to this car."

"Leo?"

"Yes?"

"Shut _up_."

"Whatever you say, sir."

That was delivered so merrily, and with such light emphasis on the last word, that Adrian made a note of it. Not the kind in the files he picked up from one host to another, but the kind that told him where other people cracked under pressure.

Most people did. Best to find the fault lines through deliberate pressure in safe circumstances, instead of letting coworkers crumble at inconvenient moments during the job. He'd had enough of that for one fucking lifetime.


	29. In Which All Relevant Damage Is Deliberate

I don't like where we're leaving the car. Off the side of the road, in the dark, that's fine, and there's a ribbon of faux wilderness between us and our target, but I don't like it. We're too close to escape careful notice from the target, and too obvious from the main road.

For some reason, Adrian doesn't like having this pointed out.

"All you have to do," he says, "is wait in the car. I have been assured that you're capable of understanding and following simple orders. Do you understand this one?"

"I've got the gist." And I'm leaving the key in the ignition. "But I was told to play backup to what you're doing, and I can't do that effectively if you won't give me any information what's happening."

"It's none of your business." He's in the same host now as he brought the car with, and I'm not sure when he got the daily corruption out of the way. Maybe whatever he's up to next will take care of that; it's coming up on ten at night, which is also earlier at night than I'd plan to get up to anything sneaky. During the day when no one's expecting it, or late enough at night that people are tired, that's when to hit a location. But no one asked me to make the plans.

"Can you give me some general guidelines? Because right now, if something comes up and you call for help, I don't know if you want me to come shoot someone for you or blow up a power station."

"I will _specify_ ," he says. He's about two notches of irritation away from saying everything through gritted teeth. Probably best not to push it much further, but this is actually relevant to work. "Don't blow up anything. Don't kill anyone. Stay here unless you're called for."

"How about telling me what our general goal is, so that--"

"Here." He points to the seat I'm already in. "Sit. _Stay_." The Shedite climbs out of the stupidly large car, the choice of which still says nothing good about his overall judgment, and stares at me for a pointed moment. "Good boy." He slams the door shut, and stalks away.

I make sure all the doors are unlocked, and slouch down in the seat. Time to be a responsible employee, and wait.

So what can I figure out, from what I know so far? Not a great deal. We're going in after something physical; there wouldn't be all this driving, and the insistence on backup, otherwise. (Usually I'd assume physical, but with this company, less so.) It's under enough security that Adrian can't simply slip from host to host through the facility during the day, pocket it, and walk out. But it's not so large or well-guarded that he thinks he needs anyone else's help for getting it out at night. There'll be at least one person on watch, anything with security enough to send a Knight after... So why doesn't he just jump into them? Again, that doesn't really require backup. Though that does leave a confused abandoned host standing in an awkward place, and that may be considered a security risk. I should ask more about policy on that. Guo always takes inconsequential sorts of hosts, and doesn't hold them for long. It's different when we've driven one into another country.

He could treat his host like a vessel. He's had most of a day to settle into the body, and know how it works, even if a good portion of that time has been spent sitting in a car. Sneak in, get what he's looking for, sneak back out. I have no idea what Songs he has, or if he's picked up any of the more exciting attunements of Theft, so maybe this _is_ trivial and dragging along backup is a piece of tedious bureaucracy. Like filling out after mission reports with Regan.

I lace my fingers behind my head, and imagine what this would be like if I were working with Regan. She wouldn't make me wait with the getaway car. She'd let me do most of the planning, at that, even if she overrode any parts of the plan she didn't like... It would probably end with someone dead, and more disturbance than we were supposed to cause, and me trying to justify that in the reports while she explained how it all went exactly as it should have. To me, because she couldn't get away with resonating superior officers into agreement. Usually.

A whisper of disturbance slides past me. What it's from, I can't tell. Direction and distance say that Adrian's getting up to something, which is expected and reassuring both. Disturbance from any _other_ direction than the one he left for would be a problem.

I check the email on my phone. Guo has sent a rambling, poorly punctuated explanation of a burglary his gang got up to recently. Yuliang has sent a series of kitten gifs. Zabina's email is about helpful vocabulary in French when traveling. Presumably _she_ knew what this job was about, and chose not to tell me because--she expected Adrian to explain? She expected me to figure it out?

It's always a test. I appreciate that she warned me beforehand.

I peck out a message to Lanthano, one letter after another on the impossibly tiny virtual keyboard. One advantage of my female vessel: that one has fingers better sized for dealing with modern technology. Dear Lanthano, hope you're well, I'm stuck on a road in the middle of nowhere, insofar as one can achieve "middle of nowhere" in France, waiting for Adrian to steal whatever he means to steal and refuses to tell me about, and I bet he'd do a better job of it if he were willing to take a little constructive criticism...

We're up on twenty minutes. Not an unreasonable amount of time, but I expect Adrian back soon. If this were the kind of job that takes three hours on the inside--

\--well, no. He probably wouldn't tell me. He'd leave me out here to worry, just to see if I could follow orders, and to be smug about either my concern or my failure to do as I was told.

Zabina told me to follow Adrian's instructions the way I follow hers. Well, I follow hers with some room for interpretation within them. I leave the car, and find a comfortable place to stand among the trees, where I _will_ see anyone coming for the car. From this point, I can make out the fence of the facility we're presumably targeting. Standard chain-link fence (trivial to break even without resonance), nastier loops of wire on top. I could clear it tidily if I weren't rushed, and messily if I were. Or very gracefully indeed if making a hole in it was acceptably subtle for the job at hand.

So that's one of the things that we should have covered before Adrian got in his obligatory last word. How low of a profile are we keeping? Do we need to make sure there are no signs we were ever here? Or is that only the case if everything goes well? How noisy can we get before local celestials notice and stop by to say hello? There can't be any inside, or he would've mentioned that. I'm sure that even _he_ isn't reckless enough to spring that one on me. "By the way, someone inside can read the truth on everything you say" or "Oh, one of the employees could make you believe everything they say" is the kind of detail that you don't skip past in hopes that someone else will trip up. Basic company security issue.

Adrian is an unnecessarily horrible person--I'd say it goes with being a Shedite, if it weren't for a few counter-examples--but I don't think he'd put company security at risk. He wouldn't be a Knight otherwise. Or, a more reliable indicator of what his reliability is, Zabina wouldn't have sent me out with him otherwise.

I do trust her to watch out for the company, after all.

I suppose I trust her to watch out for me. Up to a point. If it comes down to the company or me, every single coworker I have, right down to Lanthano, won't even have to think about that choice. But that's fine. It's just like protecting Word assets, on a slightly more personal scale.

In a way, I am not surprised when Adrian's voice (and it's _his_ voice, in a way that the voice that comes out of his host's isn't exactly, though I'd be hard pressed to explain how I can tell the difference) arrives in my head with one surely begrudged Essence.

_Pull attention away from the center building. Nine minutes, on this mark._

I check my phone for an exact time stamp, and leave the damn SUV to check out what I'm working with. Nine minutes is plenty of time to come up with a plan.

Area of work: a research property that doesn't deserve the term "campus" at its size. Everything's inside the fence. A single gate in and out, guard house (currently manned, one person) at the gate. Probably a few security inside, not just one, if they're bothering to have a watchman on the gates even at this time of night. Three buildings. The center one's easy to reach if I need to get there directly, but I'm supposed to be pulling attention away.

Well. There are multiple types of attention, and he didn't specify. Let's see how many I can set up.

I call up Ethereal Form, and clear the fence. Carefully. Then I check out all the potential exits on the side of the central building that points towards the SUV, and make sure they're unlocked. Windows will open freely, doors swing open at a touch... I'm not sure this place is up to local fire codes, given how many windows won't open at all without being more broken than seems subtle, but I haven't reviewed local fire codes. Maybe the place got grandfathered in. It does have that sort of stocky look that comes of having been built around the same time as the second world war, and then retrofitted a few times since.

He must've run into trouble of the personnel kind inside, or he wouldn't want _distractions_. But, hey, distractions. I've done those before. My favorite way to work is with one other person, or two if they're both reasonable types. If I just had one Kyriotate at hand--

Don't, won't, irrelevant. I slice an exit through the fence, precise and narrow where no casual inspection from a distance will catch it. Can I trust that Adrian will see the handy escape route? Maybe not. I rip a strip of cloth free from my jeans--the inside of a pocket I'm not using--and hook it across the point of clean-cut wire section. A flash of white in the poorly illuminated edge of the compound, and unlikely to look like anything but background noise for people who aren't looking.

If Adrian wants to leave by going over the fence, that's his problem. I'm running out of time before the moment he asked for.

No one's stolen the SUV in the few minutes I left it with doors unlocked and key in the ignition, a sure sign of an insufficiently trafficked road if I've ever seen one. You know you're too far away from an urban center when you can't even get a car stolen when you're trying. Not that I was exactly trying, since I need it for a few minutes longer, but...okay, yes, I was sort of trying.

I find that I'm whistling as I pull back onto the road. No tune in particular. It's just nice to have something interesting to do. Even if part of the setup for _interesting_ required that I direct an edge of my resonance, ever so carefully, against myself. Not enough to do any real damage. Just enough to pull open a few recent scabs that hadn't healed fully anyway.

At nine minutes from the message, as near to the dot as I can count it, I drive the SUV into the front gate of the compound.

They should've invested in better fencing. I knock the automatic gate off its tracks, and crumple in a corner of the guardhouse. Not enough of a gap to drive a truck through, but they'll need contractors out here first thing in the morning if they don't want a space large enough for people to stroll through casually sitting in their perimeter. (With weapons at hand, says Regan's voice in my head, but she'd be murdering people already. That's not how we're playing it. I was given guidelines, if not enough of them.)

Ethereal Form wore off about fifteen seconds ago, its echoes all caught up in the disturbance of the damage I just did. Anyone who's looking for noise, corporeal or otherwise, has some to pay attention to right now.

I shake the grin off my face, unbuckle my seat belt, and stagger out of the car. It's not all that hard to look wobbly on my feet; that was some impact, even knowing it was coming, and how much crumple zone I had to work with. If there's anything an SUV has as a virtue, it's its ability to destroy whatever it hits faster than it destroys itself in a full-on collision.

The man in the guardhouse is first on the scene, especially as he now has an extra exit to use on his way over to wave a gun at me. I ignore what he's saying in favor of staring at the blood coating my arm like it's something I haven't seen before.

"Hey," I say indignantly, when I look up. All in English, now, with some bonus Texan accent that I haven't bothered to use in years. "That's supposed to be _automatic_. That thing was supposed to open! The directions said, you get the little, you know, the opener in the car, it's going to open when you drive up!"

The guard shouts at me a bit more, though his gun's lowering as he sees the blood. This is not some secret government lab, full of soldiers ready to shoot interlopers on sight. (In my experience, even the actual secret government labs, full of soldiers instructed to shoot interlopers on sight, turn out to be filled with humans who have a little reluctance to fire on just everything. It's the ones with private ex-military security you have to watch out for.) This man probably does not want the potential legal headache of shooting an idiot tourist who's clearly in shock, given the lack of reaction to the gun.

And _there's_ another security guard, running over from the nearest building. What I want to clear is the center. "Oh, fuck," I say, holding up my bloodiest arm. "Fuck, this is going to get all over the floor, I am _never_ getting my deposit back. Where's Martin, anyway? You know, Mister--what do you call it, Monsieur? Martin? Marrrrr-tiiiiin, his gate's broken, it was supposed to _open_ for me, and look at what this did to my car!"

It's a terrible shame that we didn't have any alcohol on hand. I could make this more entertaining by far with a single bottle of beer to deploy.

The first guard explains matters to the second guard, and then radios, and within short order I have four men all sort of pointing their guns in a way that suggests that they could be pointing them at me, but aren't just now, but might start at any moment if I make any sudden movements, so don't, okay?

"This is private property," says one of them, who turns out to know English. "You cannot stay here. You must leave."

"I'm not going anywhere," I say, all mortal indignation, "until you call Martin over and tell him that _his_ gate did this to _my_ car." I push one of the men with a bloody hand, a wobbly shove like I can't do better. "Don't try to threaten me with one of those. I come from _America_ , you know, my grandmother's got more guns than the four of you put together. Where's Martin? Do you need me to spell that for you?"

I make sure that none of those guns are going to fire while I'm arguing with them about the mysterious Martin, his house, his automatic gate, the deposit on my rented SUV, the fact that I'm bleeding on all of them, and my theoretical inebriation level.

It takes half an hour, and consultation among five security guards, to get me a tow truck. I turn down the offer of medical care repeatedly, garble out some mish-mash of the address that I was supposed to be driving to, and end up taking a ride with the tow truck back to a gas station where some friend of mine will come pick me up. And I do give them appropriate ID for their records. There's a reason to have it.

In the station's bathroom, I scrub myself down as best I can. I still look like I was in a car accident. Worse than it actually felt; most of the damage was pre-existing, encouraged to look a little nastier. It'll heal on its own time.

When no one much is paying attention, I take myself a few blocks further away and pick up a car. A decent sedan with good handling, this time. And then I go to find Adrian.

He actually looks surprised for an instant, when I pull up beside him on the road. A brief instant before he gets in the car and slams the door. "What took you so long?"

"Lack of Djinn resonance." I pull back onto the road. No real traffic at this time of morning, and if I exceed a posted limits, I can make it back to a decent highway before any sort of morning rush starts. "Do you need to make any stops before we head back?"

"Unless you have a way to retrieve that vehicle in good working condition, I suppose _not_." He's still in the same host. I wonder if it was her car. And if it was, why he cares. "What possessed you to destroy it?"

"You told me not to blow up anything or kill anyone. Did not say _anything_ about keeping the car in good condition."

"And removing the door locks?"

"I thought you might be in a hurry. Or not want to scale the fence. I thought about leaving that in the same shape on the way back out, for the sake of discretion, but I figured that once you were asking for a distraction, 'discreet' wasn't really in the cards."

"Is this how you keep losing Words?" Adrian asks. "Someone asks for a minor task, and you set everything on fire?"

"No, actually, that comes across pretty well in Fire," I say, and increases the speed a little. "Though the War wasn't really big on it, that's true. And I didn't set anything on fire this time. How would you have liked me to have done that?"

"Suppose," he says, the acid creeping in (though it's never gotten very far away), "that I had specified not causing major property damage. How would you have drawn attention in that case?"

"Oh, now you want to make it difficult." I think about this for a moment. "If the point is attention moving somewhere, that's one thing. If it's to keep their attention from being on _you_ , that's another. It's easy enough to walk into the building with Ethereal Form up and shove people into a few lockable closets if all you need is a distraction. What was going on in there, that you couldn't just jump a useful guard?"

"And leave this host wandering untended?"

I shrug to that. Like I know anything about host management. It's the sort of thing I try not to think about in detail, given how creepy it is. Best to ignore the details and be glad that Shedim can only do it to humans, not to anyone else. "Or I could drill you a hole in the roof and get you an extraction that way. It's hard to make hypothetical plans when I don't even know what the _goal_ is."

"Do all of your plans involve breaking holes in things?"

"The one where I shoved people in closets didn't, now, did it?"

Adrian closes his eyes (his host's eyes, and I wonder if deep down in the haze of Shedite-filtered perception she has going she needs some sleep), and takes a short breath. Like he's trying to keep his temper. "Do you have _any_ useful skills?"

"Gosh. Can't think of any."

His eyes snap back open. "Tell me," he says, and that is not annoyance, but distinction-granted rank, powering that statement. "What do you have of use to contribute to this organization?"

"I have familiarity with North American culture and a large number of Tethers there, on both sides." The driving's almost automatic, even at this speed. A little risky in the dark, but that's what headlights are for. "I know how to blow up a building with as much or little collateral damage as you want. I can design a replacement that won't catch on fire half so easily. I'm a better getaway driver than a lot of people. I've got some Marches experience and contacts. And on my nights off, I climb exciting national monuments for fun, which maybe isn't of much use to the company in particular, but it's good practice for Tether work. Given how many of those end up attached to big national monuments."

"And that's it."

"Since I spend most of the fights I get into trying to avoid being hit, yes, that's pretty much it. Besides, you know." I wave a hand, careful not to get too far into his personal space with it. "Calabite stuff. I can also cry convincingly on command, but that's only useful in the other vessel, and it's mostly good for distracting someone long enough that my--someone else can hit them over the back of the head. Isn't there a file on this sort of thing? I could swear that there's a file on me. You should see about getting access to that, if you care about these details."

"It mentioned the explosions," Adrian says, as if that's something I should be ashamed of.

"Those are the flashier parts of my resume, I guess."

"And now you climb things. For...practice?"

"Zabina told me to pick a hobby, and there's not much to do in that city at midnight." He's going somewhere with this, and I can't tell where, which worries me somewhat.

"So you took up parkour."

"No, that's all flash. I just worked out how to get into places I'm not supposed to, high up and the like. The view's good from the top. You should try it some time."

Adrian makes a small, angry sound that I can't interpret further, and slumps back on his side of the car. "Shut up and drive, Leo. I'll tell you when to turn."

Like I can't find my way back home along the same route I took to get here. And he _doesn't_ tell me when to turn, nor does he comment on the fact that I can remember that all on my own. He spends the drive checking his phone, or with his eyes closed, contemplating I don't know what. I spend the drive quiet.

Still not sure what Zabina's going to think of my report card on this one.


	30. In Which We Discuss My Report Card

By the time Zabina calls me to her office for a post-mission debriefing (or whatever they call those in Theft, when it's not the Boss delivering critique and asking trick questions), I've had a chance to switch vessels. Since I had time for a shower before the swap, it's not really a net improvement, but I suppose I can take some satisfaction in the reduced pain. _This_ vessel doesn't really get opportunities to take damage. Just as well. Unlike the identical one that predated it, it's not much tougher than the other.

Last night was the closest I've gotten to a fight in some time, and I didn't so much as kick another person in the knee. That's an odd thought. I'm used to work being more--dangerous? Physically challenging? Something involving gunfire and flames and trying not to be seen while people are already trying to kill each other. Not every job, but enough that the lack feels strange. I could've done the same with Zhune as I did with Adrian, but strictly human opposition usually meant we were pulling a job for fun or practice. Real work almost always involved angels. Or, about as often, other demons.

Maybe I could go a decade without losing a vessel. That would be a pleasant novelty.

Zabina's door is cracked open, so I walk inside immediately after knocking. She's dealing with paperwork of the old-fashioned kind that actually comes on paper, and glances up at my arrival. "Have a seat."

I sit across from her, politely and neatly, just as I did when Adrian was in here. From some inches further down, given the vessel swap. There should be a paper, marked in red ink, to lay between us and go over... But she's not that sort of authority figure. Critique will be delivered in the form of verbal instructions.

I resist the urge to chirp out some bright _How did I do?_ , like Yuliang might, and wait.

She's not the sort to make a big show about making me wait. She sets the paper aside a moment later, and studies me directly. "What sort of report do you think you received?"

"Adrian considers me mouthy, unsubtle, and completely unsuited to be an employee of this company." Okay, so I am being too cheery about this. It's a defensive move, and we both know it, and she's not going to call me out on it unless I push it a lot farther than this. "He was determined to believe most of that from before I first met him back at Yuliang's place, much less here, and I don't think there's a thing I could have done to change his mind on any of it. Except to have failed, at which point he'd actually have _proof_ of incompetence, rather than the assumption of it."

"You're making quite the series of assumptions on limited evidence," Zabina says, neutral as clear water.

"I'm making a basic assumption on how Adrian operates based on what I've heard from other employees and witnessed myself. There was nothing I could do to make him happy, was there?"

The corner of Zabina's mouth quirks. "Miracles do happen," she says. "Likely, no. Nonetheless, you had a job to do, and he rated you on that, along with any comments of personal taste. Are you satisfied with your own performance?"

As she would say, it's not a trick question. It's a test. "Moderately. I could've done much better if I'd had any prior warning on what we were doing, or where, or what the limits were on it. Adrian's reaction tells me that I was less subtle than he wanted, but my previous occupation sort of buried the needle on that one; I went for relatively low disturbance, only one Song used, and no one dead, which I thought was discreet enough."

Zabina raises an eyebrow. "Your answer is 'Quite well, and where I didn't do well, it was Adrian's fault.' Is that your final answer?"

I may as well find out a few of these limits. "Yes. That's pretty much it. I suppose I could have guessed more accurately, but it was _guessing_ , because he wouldn't give me enough information."

"The company generally prefers a lower rate of property damage when conducting sensitive operations," Zabina says. "Ideally, we work in such a way that no one has reason to remember any interactions with us as potentially connected to what happened afterward or meanwhile. Try to remember this for next time."

Critique, but not exactly criticism. She won't hold against me what no one told me, if it's not something that should be obvious on its own. She _will_ expect me to remember for next time.

I have a supervisor who is...fair.

Not sure how to deal with that. I don't know how one reacts to such a creature.

"I'll be quieter next time," I say. "Is there any chance I'll get more information, the next time this comes up?"

"It would depend on who you're working with," Zabina says. So with Adrian, I get to work in the dark. Fine. If he won't give me data, I won't give him the results he wants. I'll be as effective as anyone could ask for, and I will push the letter of his instructions as far as they'll go. "Do you have any questions?"

What an open-ended opportunity. I glance down at the well-trimmed nails on these small hands, and sort through the possibilities. Arrange them by risk, and remove the riskiest. "When you talked me into picking this vessel as the one for my Role, which part was the test? Did I pass by picking the vessel you wanted me to, or fail by not realizing the deck was stacked?"

"Do avoid metaphors involving card games," Zabina says. "They translate poorly, and give some people the wrong impression."

I fold my hands in my lap, and wait.

"Both parts," she says. "I didn't expect you to catch on to the manipulation at the time, so there's no shame in failing. You were distracted."

Caught up in my own stupid head with the side-effects of walking away from my--partner. However what you want to term that relationship. _Partner_ , then, an unequal and complicated partnership, but ultimately nothing more than that. It took me too long to untangle myself from it. These days, I'm better at not thinking about it. "And now every time I go on a job, that's affecting it. Which in turn affects how people respond to me. Even demons aren't immune to visuals and the cultural assumptions attached. So why _this_ arrangement? Why did you stack the deck?"

She raises an eyebrow. "You can't figure it out?"

"I can come up with lots of plausible explanations. I asked because I wanted to know which one you'd give me."

I am being insubordinate. The sort of back-talk that should get me damaged. But all Zabina says is, "You'll have to assemble more data until you're satisfied with your chosen explanations. Do you have any other questions about the job?"

None that it seems like a good idea to waste her time on. I shake my head.

"Then we may move on to discussing your Role," Zabina says, as if she's just crossed an item off the to-do list. I suppose she has. Three o'clock appointment: debriefing, Role discussion, tea. As she's never yet sent a passive-aggressive memo around--come to think of it, there's a surprising lack of those in this company--it's not giving me flashbacks to my first real corporeal job yet. "How well has that been growing?"

"I'm not sure what to compare it to. More slowly than my first one, but I was living in a dorm and attending classes full-time." Plus assorted shifts at the Fire Tether, and the occasional odd trip with my girlfriend. Still. A very mortal-focused sort of lifestyle, compared to the kind I've led in every other place since.

"You do need more contact with humans." Zabina looks my vessel over, weighing me against I don't know what standards. "A few hours a day, and we'll reassess in two months. As your Role can't easily take a job, you'll have to find your own route for interaction. Do you have any ideas?"

"It depends on what time of day I can take off."

"Afternoons. Or evenings, if you prefer. Rearrange your own hobby time as you like." She dismisses the matter of scheduling with a brief gesture. "I'll see about acquiring a car for you."

"Do I get any input on the car?" Let it at least be better than the one Adrian brought.

"Are you ready for Friday's review and test on both languages?"

"I _will_ be." If I have to haul vocabulary cards on my next climb to do it.

"Then I expect your input will be relevant to the vehicle I purchase. You may also want to begin picking up German, as you find it convenient. It will prove useful for interacting with the locals."

She turns back to her computer. I'm dismissed. Not impolitely, because it's clear and straightforward. She's laid out what she wants from me; it's up to me to fulfill those requirements.

I do prefer the tests I get warning of. I know how to study for those ones.


	31. An Interlude, In Which Someone Reaches Entirely Incorrect Conclusions About Me

One of these days, Chaixin would make him wait at the door while she dealt with other matters--not other people, but some detail, piece of paperwork, aspect of planning--and he would know that matters had changed irrevocably between them. Some day he would look at that door, and wait in the hall like some nervous contractor who wasn't sure of their place in the employee lounge a few steps away, and oh, on that day he would _know_ there was a problem.

But Adrian hadn't reached that point yet. He finished the job, he filed the usual report, and then he sent word ahead asking for a meeting. Showed up at the door to the office.

And she let him in. Because all else aside, that hadn't changed. (The facile, optimistic response, the kind that came from some of his coworkers, would be to assume it couldn't change. Wouldn't. He knew better than that, and did not subscribe to that fucking nonsense. Everything and anything could change. Even granite cracked under enough pressure.) The door opened, and he moved into the office, which updated itself imperceptibly over the decades. Technology lurched onward; the company followed in its wake, picking out the less explosive inventions from its wake. This year the Marquis had three flatscreen monitors on her desk, where two decades ago a paunchy monitor sat, lined with dust across its vents.

She had the murals on the walls updated periodically, too. He couldn't spot any new details from a cursory scan, but a dozen eyes didn't make it any easier to spot the changes. He _knew_ she had that painter in every year, but he'd gone years at a time before noticing anything different, and then spotted four changes in a single visit. And he was, in fact, distracting himself from the matter that had him sliding into place in the chair across from the desk--the one shaped for Shedim, as Hell believed more strongly in gravity than it did in any other single fact of reality, and thus floating wasn't an option--and trying to put words together in the right sort of order.

Chaixin turned her attention from the monitors to focus on him. She was a demon who understood focus, and not asking inane questions, and everything else that made the company _work_. That was made the latest decision so baffling.

"Did you have to make him an employee?" Adrian asked. That wasn't the question he meant to ask first, but that was what he'd just said. "It would've been faster and cheaper to jump him in Stygia, if all we wanted to do was get back at that fucking Djinn."

"That wasn't all we wanted to do," Chaixin said.

"So Lanthano likes him. Lanthano likes _everyone_. We could have sent him a second cat, and he would've been too distracted to notice."

"I don't make hiring decisions merely to please existing employees," Chaixin said, which was explanation and warning and not entirely true. Well. True enough if one counted the _merely_ in there, which he was forced to, because his Marquis wasn't the type to lie to him.

"We could hire someone else. Some other Calabite, if we need one." They didn't need one, had no need of picking up more of that Band, as if it were in any way relevant to the gap in the company. Chaixin had kept everything moving. They were _fine_ without any adjustment beyond what she had done to hold people together, and if a few people had fallen apart anyway, that was a sign of their weakness, not any flaw in her technique. "Pay him off and send him away, and see if he runs back to Zhune or not, if we care about that. We can't keep him, Chaixin. He'll cause problems."

She was listening, even if he hadn't convinced her yet. "Why?" she asked. "What problem do you see in this one, that you feel Zabina can't correct?"

Adrian fought the instinct to contract, tuck himself back into the chair and say _No, never mind, she'll manage it._ He pushed himself further up, one strand of himself laid across the edge of Chaixin's desk for emphasis. "This idiot child is one dose of Heavenly light away from springing flames and _wheels_. He's not a proper Calabite, and I don't mean that he doesn't know how to say yes sir and no sir at the right moments, I mean that he's in the _wrong place_."

Chaixin made a tiny thoughtful noise, which was not, he realized, at all one of _surprise_. "How can you tell?" she asked.

"It's--everything. All the little things. Anyone in Theft can like fast cars, or second-story jobs, but he's..." Adrian clicked together several teeth deep inside himself, and did not wish for a more precise language. Helltongue covered every possible concept, perfectly and exactly, if one took the time to use it the right way. "How he moves, what he likes to do, the way he _talks_. I can't write you a manual to the details, but I know it when I see it. All he has to do is run into one angel who sees this the same way, and we have a security hole the size of Switzerland."

"He's met several angels," Chaixin said, as if this were a normal sort of thing to be said about a new employee. "Various of which have attempted to steal him away. None of succeeded yet. I don't believe they're more likely to coax him away from us, if they couldn't even convince him to leave Zhune."

"He shouldn't be here," Adrian said, clinging to the edges of the chair. He didn't know how to explain it right. He knew what he _meant_ , and maybe she had more information--but he knew what he had seen, and he had information that she didn't, no helping that or changing it, which bore some fucking relevance to the situation at hand.

"What would you have us do?" Chaixin asked, and her _us_ was not the same as when he said _we_ about the company. Ghosts at her shoulder, and maybe there was something to do that, advice and information he couldn't even perceive. "We will not hand him over to the Game."

"Of course not," Adrian said, and it hurt for a moment that she could even imagine he meant that. Or--no. She knew better, and was only making a point about the available alternatives. "We can't just give him back? Let him run away again, and run off to Heaven, and it wouldn't be _our_ problem. Or our security hole. Maybe that's better repayment against that Djinn than just taking his partner away."

Chaixin gave herself one of those small silences in which she decided how to put matters in a way her employees would understand and appreciate. He didn't want the pause, but he wanted to understand, and so he'd take it. "Our Lord," she said, "is aware of this Calabite's tendencies. As was I before I ever decided to take him on. If he hasn't run away by now, I don't believe he will." That was always a carefully chosen word, when she chose to deploy it: _believe_.

"He shouldn't be here." Adrian didn't know what to do but repeat what was true, because his Marquis was the one who deserved the truth from him, more than anyone else.

"Is he more an angel than you were when we hired you, Adrian?"

Several parts of him swallowed. "That was different," he said. "The vector was different. I was moving this direction, and he's turning the opposite way."

"If it's a turn, it's one he's held for years," Chaixin said. She laid fingertips across that strand of him, an instant of contact before her hand moved away again. "Tell Zabina what you find concerning. He's her responsibility, and I will not undercut her authority unless the matter is critical. Is it?"

What could he say? There was something wrong, grating and jarring through the flow of reality and life and what the company ought to do, and that was simply the way Hell worked. All built on wrong and broken and misplaced, shaky foundation laid atop shaky foundation all the way top to bottom. The only part that held stable was the company, and that could only hold on so long, in terrain where it was built. "It's not an emergency," he said. "But I thought you should know."

"Keep me informed," she said. A tilt of her hand, and still her eyes were on him. She wouldn't send him away until he had finished.

There was no way to say it properly. And she did have information he didn't.

"I'll do that," he said. Of course he would, it was a stupid statement, but sometimes even with her he felt like he ought to make these things clear. Even if other people failed, _he_ wouldn't. Not until someone found a way to shatter him, and no one had yet, despite some trying.

He spilled back out into the hallway. Someone had set the lights too bright again.

An Impudite with pale hair leaned in the doorway to the employee lounge, and smiled at him with perfect white teeth. "Hello, Adrian."

He ignored them, and proceeded down the hall towards other parts of the office. He had work to do, especially in monitoring the work done by other, less diligent employees.

"Hello, Adrian," Valentin said, as he passed. "Hello, Adrian."

"Give it a rest," said Erzebet, from inside the lounge. She didn't bother to step outside and _stop_ the damn creature, despite that being exactly her job. And more faintly, almost inaudible as he kept moving, "He's like that to everyone, you know."

"Hello, Adrian," Valentin called, their voice light and pursuing him around the next turn.

It was nothing but relief to reach his own office, and work to do.


	32. In Which I Meet More Of The Locals

Chapter seven has not had much action so far. Every one of these characters has a sidekick--well, a servant--and we get to go through the list of how they interact. Based on those details, I can't say that I'm becoming any more fond of Athos, though D'Artagnan remains entertaining in that murderous puppy way. Regan would like the book, even if she'd nitpick all the tactics chosen.

Well, if she were the sort to read fiction. If I had more bravado than sense, I'd find a way to mail her a copy anonymously. I close the book over my thumb, and stare out into the gardens. (Somehow, they are distinctly a plural sort of gardens, much like the term "grounds", even if it's all confined by one wall.) The landscapers came through this morning, and now everything smells green. Trimmed hedges and cut grass; summer's creeping in, and the sun vaporizes scent off the remaining clippings like a socket to a plug-in air freshener.

The place still smells wrong. Not alien or shocking, just...off. A damp garden in late spring, recently trimmed, has a particular sort of smell in the places where I grew up (if that's the right way to describe learning to act human) that doesn't match this one. Just far enough askew that some portion of my brain tells me _you're not at home_.

It's funny. The smells never hit me that way when I was running from one side of the continent to the other. Maybe it's because all the moving didn't let me expect anything familiar, or maybe it's only because the variance from one side of North America to the next is still less than what I get in switching to another hemisphere. And there's just enough overlap in species between what you'll find in a European garden and an American one that it doesn't read as foreign, but as _almost_ right and...not.

But what do I know about horticulture, anyway? Did not take one class on that in college, and it's not as if I've done much reading on it, either. And nothing closer to biology than the psych classes. There never seemed to be much point in it; those details are the province of Technology or Animals, and had nothing to do with Fire. And once upon a time, I would've done absolutely anything to serve Fire better.

Live and learn. If you're lucky enough to keep living.

It is as much luck as anything else. There's a bitter core of me that wants to insist everything good I've ever had, I got through my own wit and work, and every time I lost it, it was someone else's fault. But that's such a damn childish view of the world. It's more complicated than that. Every good decision I've made, I've been working on information and skill I got because of chance and other people. And every bad decision was still a _decision_. No point in dwelling on what wasn't decision, but entirely done by outside forces. There's nothing to be learned from those moments except what I knew from day one: there are vast and powerful creatures in this world who can destroy me at a whim, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

Once upon a time, I thought I could do something about it. Step out of the War, out of the planes of existence where all the real fights happened, out of _everything_. Mail in my resignation from an unmarked address and make none of it my business. But if even humans who aren't aware of this war are constantly being shaken back and forth by it, and chewed up in its service, how could I have ever thought a demon could withdraw?

That's war for you. It brutalizes civilians, but both sides have a special hate for deserting soldiers.

And on a day like this, when I'm reading a novel set in a time period that was historical even to its author, the whole war seems distant and unreal. That's an illusion, but I know how convincing those can be. What could any of that ancient border struggle have to do with the book in my hands, the breeze in my hair, the pine needles shivering between me and the stone walls? How could any of it matter?

Well. I'm here. My existence is built on that conflict. Assume that some version of myself might've been created even if Hell had never been opened, or move further back--even if there'd been no Fall, though I can't imagine what sort of _me_ could exist at that point--and even so, I'm only here on the corporeal because of the War. We're everywhere, even if not in great numbers, and there's nothing in this world that's untouched by celestial meddling. (Given what Technology has done to the weather patterns, I'm willing to call that a solidly accurate statement. Maybe the core of the Earth hasn't been affected by celestials yet, but I wouldn't lay money on it.) Maybe it's one of those things there's no point in worrying about, because it's so much bigger than any of the participants, there's no way to change it.

Like Superiors, really. The ultimate unmovable objects and irresistible forces, each one of them, from the perspective of any of us down here. Best not to think about it. There's a long, long list of things I can't change.

I watch a brown bird flit about the garden, and don't think about things I can't change. Like I told Giovanna, there's no option to turn off my brain for a while. No rest for the wicked. (Or the holy. Maybe it doesn't bother them.) Best I can do is to try to give myself some space by thinking about things that are easily changeable but unimportant. Anything in eyeshot, I could destroy in a thought.

I mean, I'd have to climb down from here and walk up to it. The Symphony isn't particularly responsive when I'm sitting six meters away from what I want to break. But the option is there.

Another minute of flitting, and the bird settles down on the branch of the pine by my window. It cocks its head at me, fluffs up its feathers, and then turns to preen them back down vigorously.

I pull out my phone. The screen's sufficiently cracked that I'm having trouble making out text in places; probably time to get a new one, and I should just _ask_. It's not like it's a significant expense. It's not like Zabina would say no.

And yet it still bothers me that I break these things, no matter how much effort I put into taking care of them.

_Kyrio on the pine,_ I text to her, because this doesn't seem worth a phone call, or walking all the way downstairs and knocking on the door. _Some sort of bird. Want me to do anything about it?_ I follow that with a picture of the bird. A lousy photo, as it takes off the branch again as soon as I angle the lens at it.

All her return text says is _No need_ , so I put the phone away and go back to working my very slow way through this chapter.

Three sentences, and the door to the patio slams. That catches my attention and the bird's at the same time; it flits away--it'd be nice if I knew what species it was, but my best guess doesn't get any more specific than "lark?"--while I lean forward to see what's happening down there. Because that didn't sound like Zabina's means of walking through doors.

It wasn't. Giovanna stalks over to the patio wall, and stares up at the bird. She says something I can't follow at this distance, but included at least one rude word I know in German.

Then she turns around, and walks over to the table to sit down. Not Giovanna, but the Kyrio inside her. How very _practical_ of Zabina, when there's no security risk like there might be for a Shedite from another Word riding in your secretary's head. Kyriotates can check a host's pockets, but not their memories, and are guaranteed not to do any lasting damage. And they're better at conversation than little brown birds.

The Kyrio stretches out in the chair, hands behind her head. It's an elegant sprawl that I could see Lanthano using, and it's all wrong for Giovanna. Her smile damn near sparkles in the sunlight, pointed across the table at--Zabina, I expect. Who I can't see from this window. I'm hanging half out the window already to even see as much as I can.

So I climb down to the ground, a trivial process made slightly more complicated by my decision to do it quietly. It's not that I'm _sneaking_ , exactly. I just don't see any reason to bother Zabina by asking if she minds me stopping in to listen to the conversation.

Once I'm on the ground, the patio wall hides me entirely. This is not what I'd call a protected approach, especially in daylight, but the lark's nowhere in sight, so I may well be walking up unobserved. I pick my way along--it's not an official path on this side of the bushes, so it's not all that clear--and then sit down by the wall to listen. Where one of the hedges meets the wall, I can get a leafy view of the table, and I don't think any important events will be obscured by the twigs. My own cover is only so good, but the Kyrio's back is to me, and...well. Nik would always be watching her own back. I don't know if this one thinks the same way.

The Kyrio says something relaxed and cheerful in German. I really need to work on picking up more of that.

"I don't see how that's any of your concern," says Zabina, who's chosen French in her response. (Likelihood that she expects me to be listening in: moderate to high.) "Unless you meant to pay for the information?"

"I suppose I might yet," says the Kyrio. She's swapped languages without trouble. Everyone on this damn continent is better at these things than I am. "Though I thought you might give me something for free, if only because I've been the soul of discretion myself. Don't I stay out of your business?"

"As I stay out of yours," Zabina says, "and so I don't find myself feeling particularly obliged for the favor."

The Kyrio waves one of Giovanna's hands airily. "But it would be _trouble_ for you to bother me, and easy for me to bother you. So I think I deserve a little credit." She sits forward abruptly, elbows on the table. "Do give me credit for bargaining in good faith, if nothing else. Have I ever played word games with you? Set up loopholes and exploited them?"

"Not that I've noticed yet," Zabina says, precise as a Seraph. "However, she's none of your business."

"If you'll swear to that, I'll believe you," says the Kyrio, and her cheer is sharp. I'd like to see her get into an argument with Yuliang. "Swear that she's no threat to any work of the Host in this city, and I'll keep my hands off entirely."

"And your eyes out of my garden?"

The Kyrio waggles a hand in the air. "I can keep it to high flyovers. No promises about not looking in from the walls. Can you promise me that lack of threat?" Her lean in is a tell of sorts, I've decided. She may not be one to build loopholes in contracts--at least not against a Lilim once of Greed, smart choice there--but I don't think she's angling for the promise itself. Zabina's reaction to the offer will tell her more about the situation than the Lilim is willing to make explicit.

"I don't feel compelled to swear any oaths for that return on investment," Zabina says dryly. "Why the sudden concern?"

"The sudden concern comes from the change," the Kyrio says. She's fond of those airy gestures, and she has a sharp eye out for her surroundings. Very little like Giovanna, who in that same body is contained, focused, and never letting her attention stray far from Zabina if they're in the same place at once. "You have people stay and go all the time. Most of them move on to other places, so I don't care much. This one's sticking around. Your routine changes, I wonder why. And it's not as if you were dropping me an invitation to stop by for tea and a chat about local affairs."

"Should I?" Zabina asks. "I could fit you in every other Thursday, barring other commitments."

The Kyriotate laughs. I don't think I've ever heard Giovanna laugh like that. "A sincere offer?"

"Not entirely," Zabina says. "However, I could be convinced."

"Mm, and now you're changing the topic."

"You noticed?"

"Well, eyes in all sorts of places. I eventually pick up on things."

I'm getting a crick in my neck. I rest the back of my head against the wall, and watch for signs of birds in the trees.

"All I want is some basic demographic information," says the Kyriotate, breezy charm and surely another sprawling pose. "It's one thing if she's a little Sister of yours, learning her footing on Earth. It's another if she's sponsored in from some Word we're not on quite such good terms with. I don't expect you'd take on anyone especially objectionable, but wouldn't we both be more comfortable with some guidelines in place, to avoid stepping on toes?"

"That almost sounded like a threat," Zabina says, even as always.

"It's not. It's pointing out what we both know. You don't care about the local economy, I don't care about your bed and breakfast for passing troublemakers, we get along fine. You've introduced someone new who isn't moving on. Give me a few assurances so that I don't feel obliged to get really annoyingly snoopy."

"I have her well in hand," Zabina says, which is almost like a concession, in much the way that the Kyriotate's statement was almost like a threat.

A little brown lark lands on the ground a few cautious meters away from me, and tilts its head about to stare at me directly. I waggle my fingers at it in a polite sort of wave.

"I can't see you keeping a wild card around this long," says the Kyriotate from Giovanna's body, "so I'll believe that, but even so. Give me the gist of the matter? Or tell me if it's temporary, and I can ignore what doesn't cause any trouble for a while. It's not like I have enough eyes to watch everything happening in this city at once." In the lark, it turns its head about to view me from its other eye.

I hold out a hand sideways, like Nik used to perch on.

"It's not temporary," Zabina says shortly, and the lark, after a moment's consideration, consents to land on my hand.

"I could always ask her about it," the Kyriotate says, "but I didn't think that would be polite. She's not human, is she?"

"That's a rather leading question."

"That's one I'm almost sure of the answer on, but I'll still give you credit for answering questions you don't have to, if you'll confirm for me."

I shrug to the lark's head-tilt. Like I'm about to start handing out information that Zabina's still negotiating on.

"You may as well ask her yourself," Zabina says. "Rachel, would you join us?" She doesn't even have to raise her voice. Of course she chose a language I could speak deliberately. I'm not sure if having a supervisor who's this often a step ahead of me is a good thing or not.

I set the lark on my shoulder, and brush the dirt off my clothes before I round the wall and hedge to join the two of them at the table. There's a chair left unoccupied, and Giovanna-Kyrio pushes it out for me with her foot. She has a smile to go with the offer, and I'm willing to accept both. Politely, like not a single smart remark has gone through my head. Zabina has negotiations in hand (and me in hand, apparently), and I'm best off not undercutting that.

"Rachel," Zabina says, with a nod towards Giovanna's body, "meet Ulrike, a Kyriotate of Trade who resides in this area. Ulrike, meet Rachel."

I nod politely towards the host who has the speaking ability and opposable thumbs. "Good afternoon. Is that your actual name?"

"Yes," says the Kyriotate. She wears Giovanna's body more comfortably than the human who owns it, which seems unfair. "Sorcerers can't call us up the way they do to your kind, so we can be free about passing those names around. Nice to meet you properly."

I'm doing some rapid pattern-matching myself. "And by 'properly' you mean under your own name, unlike last time."

"I'm sure we haven't been introduced before," Ulrike says lightly. Doesn't play word games, my foot.

"No, but you took my order in a bar once," I say. "Last Tuesday? Or was that not you?"

"Sharp eyes," Ulrike says, and the bird on my shoulder makes an approving chirp as well. "So I'm at a slight advantage, having your last name already."

"And here I thought you might keep your distance," Zabina says, "for civility's sake." Oh, but she's not pleased, and I don't think I'd be able to pick that out from how she said it, if it weren't for witnessing a whole series of her arguments with Yuliang once upon a time.

"Keeping an eye on the city is what I do," Ulrike says, just as steady in return. "You bring in new people, and don't tell me? That's fair, and I don't expect otherwise. But you shouldn't expect me not to do a little checking in."

"I expect very little," Zabina says. She's about one more level of annoyance away from drumming her fingers, at which point I'll worry.

"I came here to ask you about the matter in person, didn't I?" Ulrike spreads her hands, and takes her lark-host back into that hand in the process. Maybe I don't seem like the safest perch anymore. "Tell me she's not one of the nastier Words, and I'll drop the whole matter. Is that so much?" And she adds to me, "Sorry to talk about you in the third person, but these human languages are terrible about pronouns. No nuance to them."

"Or the wrong sort of nuance," I say, and shut up before I can get into a line of conversation that's not to Zabina's taste. This isn't a debate about what I'm going to wear; we're dealing with the enemy, however politely, and I need to let her set the tactics. She's had more experience dealing with angels than I have.

I mean, I expect she has. She's much older than I am, and she's dealt with this one before. So it stands to reason.

"None of the murderous Words," Zabina says. Her gaze sharpens fractionally. "Theft. You should find that safe enough, as I don't intend to have her robbing banks while she's living in my house."

The Kyriotate sits back, and rolls her shoulders. "Would that be a hook that has you so satisfied?"

Zabina tilts a hand in the air.

"I can't say I wasn't asking for it," Ulrike murmurs, and gives me a conspiratorial smile. Why, I'm not yet sure. "Now that's the danger of spending too much time around a Lilim." She cracks her knuckles, and sits up straighter. "Then let me trade you something worth your time, and how about you drop that?"

"No promises," Zabina says, "unless you want to give me more details."

"It would defeat the purpose. I'll leave this up to your best judgment." She draws a circle in the air with a finger. "And this goes no further than this table, mm? You can pass it on after the fact, but if you run off and tell everyone today, information delivered may become less accurate."

Zabina makes a small gesture of her own with two fingers. Go ahead. I suspect these two never make promises to each other, or never for small matters. It's all...understandings and assessments and working out how much they have to give to get what they want. Delicately.

Ulrike looks to me expectantly. A little side order of divide and conquer, which I shouldn't indulge her in, but at this point not agreeing undercuts Zabina. Clever, and I should be careful around this Kyriotate. She's a lot smarter than Nik, and probably a damn sight older, too.

"They won't hear it from me," I say, "unless I'm asked by the sort of person I'm not allowed to lie to, in which case all bets are off. Good enough?"

"I wouldn't ask for more," she says, and shifts her gaze back--well, in Giovanna's body, she's looking at Zabina again. The lark keeps one black eye trained on me. "The Sword's coming to town. They're on the hunt for someone from Death. Nasty sort, maybe Renegade, I don't know the details. You won't run into any trouble, but Rachel here clearly isn't local. _I_ know she's been here too long to be their target; a lot of nervy blackwings might not stop to ask that."

"What kind of Death Servitor?" Zabina asks. "Shedite?"

"No, thank _God_." That sounds entirely sincere. "Calabite, I think. Or maybe Djinn? Not the kind that messes with anyone's head, for what that's worth."

"A pack of murderous Malakim are exactly what I want in my city," Zabina says dryly, but I know that spin of her fingers. A hook being dissolved, or her pretending that she's done so. I don't think she'd hold a hook on someone while feigning its release, but...it would be awfully practical. Maybe I'll ask her later.

"You and me both," Ulrike says, "so keep your head down and maybe you won't have to meet any." One of the advantages French has over English is that it's perfectly clear from that sentence that she's talking to both of us, and not Zabina alone. "That's all the exciting news I have for today, unless you did want to break out the tea?"

"Not this time," Zabina says.

"Then I'll be on my way. A pleasure as always." Where the sort of people who wear their own bodies would push back the chair and stand, the Kyriotate only stretches her arms up high, then settles them back down again. And Giovanna blinks rapidly across the table as the body's all hers again.

The lark on her shoulder warbles prettily, and flies away before the human who has it in arm's reach can make any sudden motions.

"Disgusting creature," Giovanna mutters, her shoulders hunching in.

"See that she's not lurking in the hedges," Zabina tells me, "then come see me." She leaves without so much as a pat on the shoulder for Giovanna.

But maybe the human doesn't want obvious gestures of sympathy just now. Especially knowing she'll have to do this again in the future. "Better than a Shedite, isn't it?" I say.

Giovanna brushes a hand through her hair. Not as good as a head-toss for expressing casual disdain for the question, and about as convincing a show of insouciance either way. "Oh, it depends on the Shedite," she says. "Did it say anything interesting?"

"Not really. It wanted to poke me a few times and see if I was house-trained." I shove my hands into my pockets and amble off to stare at various bushes. It's not like I _could_ tell if Ulrike were still lurking around, in a sufficiently small animal. I cannot comb these gardens for shrews and ladybugs. What I can do is look at all the hedges and trees, and give Zabina time to do whatever she wants to do without me looking over her shoulder.

I do a sufficiently thorough job of bush-checking that the outfit's a loss--by Zabina's standards of what's presentable--by the time I make it back to her office. She raises an eyebrow at my current state of disrepair, and says nothing about it. Only fair when she told me to investigate the landscaping.

Well, she does point me towards the chair without the good upholstery.

"What do you think?" she asks.

"She's smart, she's old, and she's dangerous. We're lucky she doesn't mind some negotiation with the enemy."

"Only the right type of enemy," Zabina says. "Anything else?"

I slouch down in the chair. Then straighten up again. Old habits die hard. "I _don't_ know how she pegged me as a demon, though. I've been careful to avoid any disturbance when playing this Role, and I don't swap vessels down in the city. Is she camping out perimeter of your property, and counting entrances against exits? Because if she spotted me, there's a good chance she's noticed the other vessel, too." Which is a possibility I like even less. This vessel's for using. The other one is _mine_ , as much as any vessel is allowed to be.

"Perhaps," Zabina says. "In this case, I suspect she worked out your nature through familiarity with my habits, rather than any mistake you made."

"You wouldn't take on another human servant while you already had Giovanna?"

"I wouldn't hire an American," Zabina says blandly.

I give in to the urge to sprawl, and grin at my supervisor. "What about a Canadian? I can fake the accent, if it helps."

"Probably not."

"Not even from Quebec?"

"Probably _not_ ," Zabina says, but the corner of her mouth twitches. I'll take it. "You did hear her warning, and there's a good chance it's an honest one. Take it into account any time you're in the city for the next week."

"I'll be careful. And I'll stick to this vessel, just in case she's spying." I flick a leaf off my sleeve onto the floor. "Will she?"

"Rarely. She considers the city itself her charge, and you played harmless convincingly."

"It wasn't entirely an act."

"You could level every major landmark of that city in one night, if you put your mind to it," Zabina says.

"Yes, but I wouldn't, because I'm not stupid. So, harmless. See?"

"Do watch yourself," Zabina says. "I'd hate to have to start with another student from scratch."

All in all, I leave the office feeling like I passed one of her tests. And. I don't know. Like things are going pretty well, imminent Swordies entirely aside.


	33. In Which Someone Distinctly Non-Local Meets Me

The city looks best from the highest point available, very late at night when most of the lights have gone out. That's when you can see the bones and veins of the city. Not only how the streets are laid out, but how the city chooses to light them. And the way cars move, even at night... Not _many_ at this time of night, but that tells you something too.

The highest point available in this city--in any interesting fashion, because some modern architecture is too dull to bother climbing--is, unfortunately, directly on top of the Stone Tether. As I discovered the hard way. (The slightly hard way, given I didn't end up running from Malakim in the process of discovery.) So I've been spending the last few hours trying out less ideal views, on less historic buildings.

I've kept the warnings in mind. The city's been quiet for five days, and I'm in my vessel with a Role attached. Maybe I can't pass for a local, but there are advantages to looking small and female when it comes to trigger-happy sorts. Even people who know about vessels aren't immune to reacting to the stereotypes.

Besides, climbing the same places in a different body is...engaging. Losing half a foot of reach is not my friend, but I've got some compensation in pulling less weight on the same strength, plus some better flexibility for moves that have me twisting in close. Sometimes all the extra length just gets in the way.

So I've cleared three buildings tonight, and have time for one more before I really ought to be heading back home. I'm a few meters from the top of this one--or at least, the edge where I usually latch on, which is going to be a challenge with this reach. And the footing's not great for a straight-up leap. I mean, I'd probably catch on just fine, but "probably" is what leads to broken arms and awkward explanations to my supervisor.

I spend a full minute clinging to the side while I consider my options. The air's dead still tonight, and heavy with humidity from the river. A good night for taking stupid risks, I guess. Left foot to the best launch spot I have available, right foot bracing a convenient horizontal lintel, heels of my hands _down_ and the rest of me _up_.

Snagged by my fingertips, right where I meant to be. The jolt of catching on, and _holding_ against gravity, is what keeps me coming out here one night after another. That and the view, and getting a better sense for historical building styles. So I suppose there are a few things. Once I'm caught on, it's easier to do the rest in this vessel than the heavier male one; these shoes aren't made for climbing, but they catch enough on this stone to give me some push up, so that I'm not pulling myself entirely by fingertips.

Of course Zabina doesn't object to any of this nonsense. Where else am I going to get any exercise? Learning French is a sedentary activity so far.

I haul myself onto the tiles, knees between my hands, and teeter there for a moment. The best place for the view is at the top of the roof's peak, but there are enough different angles up here that it's more secure--and less risk of someone seeing me, if they're scanning historic roofs at three in the morning for whatever reasons they might have for that--to find one of the lines where those planes join up, and spend some time there.

"Bonjour!" says someone directly to my left, looming up out of the darkness.

The problem with working for Theft for most of a decade is that you start picking up certain habits. Like reacting to surprise encounters by bolting _away_. The only direction available that's away is to the right and _oh_ there went my balance and this is likely to--

\--not hurt, yet, because I've been snagged. Not on the architecture, which is pretty smooth in this area, but by a hand to the back of my coat, holding me over the edge of the roof. It's an excellent position for someone who wants to deliver threats.

" _Careful_ ," she says, and sets me back on the edge of the roof. That was in German, but it's one of those words I've managed to pick up on by now. Tends to show up on signs around the doors I'm not supposed to go through, when I'm exploring, and it sounds almost like it's spelled.

"Thanks?" That's another word I know in German. My accent's bad, but so is hers. Speaking of _not a local_ around here...

She waves a hand, palm down, towards the roof. And then in one fluid motion she settles back down into the place she must've been in already, when I crossed the edge of the roof. A nice horizontal line where two slanting planes of the roof meet, and a sniper rifle set up within it.

I hunker down at her side. Further from the edge of the roof, with my feet braced so that I can sit against the incline. Well. She hasn't started stabbing me yet, so if she's a Malakite, she either didn't get a reading, or didn't get one that made me look particularly bad.

What would a Malakite pull on me, anyway? It's been long enough since that thing with Eder that it shouldn't show, if I understand how the timing works on that resonance. (And I may not. Most of the education I was given about Malakim was based on the assumption that they'd already identified you as an enemy.) I haven't done anything wildly virtuous or dishonorable lately.

Maybe if you count rescuing Guo as a mark of honor. Some people in the company seem to view it that way, though not in those words. But it was just what needed to be done. I don't think doing your job is a matter of honor. It's just what you _do_.

The worst thing I've done in a year is easy enough to think of. But I don't think the angels would care about that.

The sniper asks me a question, and not in a language I speak. Spanish? Maybe Italian. European accents can throw me off.

"Sorry," I say, "I don't speak--" Well, I know that much in German, and not the name of the language anyway. And I can't remember how to use demonstratives; my head's a jumble of French when I try to pick them out. "How about English?"

"No," she says firmly, and tries another language. She's quite capable of holding this conversation without taking her eye off the area she's watching through those sights.

Though she left them to catch me. Huh.

"Nope, not that one. French?"

She sighs, a bit dramatically. "Some French," she says. "What's your name?"

"Rachel." I wrap my arms loosely over my knees, and prop my chin there. A small target on a dark roof, if anyone comes looking for snipers. "What's yours?"

"Riccarda." She lifts a hand--not the one she'd use for the trigger--in a little wave. "Why are you up here?"

"I like the view. And I like the climbing." I look over her rifle, which is not a shiny new model. One I recognize and worked with once or twice myself, and it has the look of a weapon that's been well-used and well-tended. "Why are you up here?"

"You can't guess?" She sounds amused, which is fair.

"I was wondering if you'd admit to it, or try to come up with a..." I don't know how to say _cover story_ in French. "...good lie."

"No," she says, further amused. "I am here to shoot someone. Not you," she adds, a friendly sort of reassurance that, I have to admit, is a little reassuring. "Is it a good view from here?"

I lift my chin up to look out over her head. "Decent. There are better views in the city."

"The cathedral," she says. "Have you looked from the top of there?"

"Once."

"Only once! Why?"

"I fell off," I say, which is not exactly the reason why I stopped visiting that location.

"Fall off it, climb it again." She shrugs, a minute ripple of her shoulders where she lies. "The way to learn to climb good. _Better_."

"Unless I break my neck, which would make learning noticeably harder."

"A point," she allows. "This place has a good view. I saw worse. Worse places to climb, too."

"Which way did you come up?"

"Inside," she says, "then through a window at the top. Not hard like your climb. I saw that. And with those short arms!"

I hold my hands out, and frown at them. "A point."

She chuckles, a low sound that sends shivers up my spine. "There are worse."

"Yes, but you can say that about anything, so it doesn't mean anything." I tuck my chin down on my knees again. "Do you shoot many people from rooftops?"

She has to think about this one for a moment. "What do you say with 'many'?"

"I didn't have an exact number in mind. Do you do this often? Or is that another word too fuzzy to answer well?"

"More often than you," she says. "Or do you shoot many people from rooftops?"

"Well." I have to think about this myself, now. "Not recently. And not usually from roofs. So I think you're right."

"I often am."

It's not the way she moves, because she's almost perfectly still. It's that particular smug confidence in her voice. I used to hear it from Regan, and...this is not a Balseraph. Not with the warning we got about the Sword in town.

Maybe I should be somewhat more careful about what I say.

Maybe I should shut up entirely.

I often make bad decisions. "How do you know you're shooting the right person, when you're shooting people from rooftops? Or anywhere else."

"Contact with my team." It stands to reason that Riccarda would have more vocabulary for tactical matters than casual chatter. "Place, time, description, confirmation."

"So once you know you're shooting the person you were told to, how do you know you're right to kill them?"

She lifts her head from the scope to look at me directly, head tilted to the side. Her hair's cropped shorter than mine, black fuzz against her scalp. "A good question," she says.

"That's not an answer."

"I know." She settles her gaze back in place. "French isn't good for this. The answer isn't easy. Who gets what? Who...what's the word? Get what you should get."

"Deserves."

"That one. How does anyone deserve anything? The easy answer is, orders. Too easy. We know who says that, 'I followed orders.' So we can't have the easy answer. Good. Death shouldn't be easy. We ask questions, we should ask questions, and then we can't ask, because people move. They _do_. We can ask who deserves what, and a person kills another. We know the another didn't deserve that. What do we do with the first person? _Do_ we know the another didn't deserve to die? If we kill the first person, what does another another know, to see us? If we don't kill the first person, if the first person kills another, did we kill the--ah, second, that's the word. We didn't stop the first. So we can't stop to know who deserves. And we're wrong if we kill who doesn't deserve."

"So there's no knowing."

"Some, we know. Most, we almost know." She snorts, a distinctly inhuman sound this time. "Some we don't know. Some, we are _wrong_."

"If you never shot anyone, you'd never shoot someone who didn't deserve it."

"And then I never shoot anyone who deserves it. Kill with..." She pauses, and her finger settles on the trigger. "A stop. Stay low and quiet."

I keep my head down, and wait. Riccarda breathes with a perfectly steady rhythm. You could set music to it.

Disturbance crackles. She hears it before I do; her shoulders tense, and then I get the buzz of that wrongness in the Symphony. A Song, and another one. Nothing I recognize.

The next sound is audible to perfectly physical senses: breaking glass, and a crunch of metal against something harder. At a guess, a car crashing into--oh, something large and stone. I've heard that often enough from much closer. Whatever disturbance it's caused is lost in the general rattle.

Another Song joins the noise. (Healing, this time. I recognize that one from having been up close and personal to its disturbance so many times before.) Riccarda makes an amused noise at the back of her throat. "I told them," she says.

"And did they take your advice?"

"Yes."

Not the answer I expected. I suppose Seraphim get a better response from coworkers than Balseraphs do. Or maybe it's just that she works with people who trust her judgment and take it into account, even if they're dubious about a given piece of advice. Must be nice.

The disturbance ratchets up another notch. More than one person just threw Essence into...mm. Some of them into the general attempt to kill and not being killed. One person? At a guess, given the _physical things being destroyed_ echo immediately behind it, into the Calabite resonance. Guess it wasn't a Djinn after all.

I'm glad to be up here, or should be. Disturbance is something to run away from, and Death is friends with no one I like. But hearing the muddled after-effects of what's going on, and not being able to see it or do anything about it, is getting on my nerves. I wrap my arms around my knees before I start fidgeting with something and annoy the sniper Seraph.

"Get down and behind me," Riccarda says, a phrase so fluid and fast that she must have _that_ one memorized as a unit. (Especially as she's addressing me in the plural.) I am not an idiot; I uncoil and slide down into the space behind her, and then crawl back from there on my belly with my head below the height of her shoulder.

A very historic roof tile cracks apart, a good meter away from either of us. "Bad aim," I say, once I've remembered the right word for it.

"Yes," Riccarda says. "A good thing."

"Well, good for us." I rest my chin on my hands, and try not to twitch. This would be the worst possible time to go climbing around on anything, and whatever her team is doing on the ground is not my problem, or my business, or anything I should be interfering with on any side of the fight.

Especially the part where I'm not real sure which side I'd be rooting for.

No, hell, the problem is I know which side I'd be rooting for, but not which one I _should_. Death is no friend of ours, but they're not the sort of enemy who hunts us down, unlike the Sword. Usually. But enemies nearer to home are more of a problem, and if they're dealing with someone who's trying to spin conflict hotter, that's a problem for us, too, where we might as well encourage them to take care of that problem for us. And it's just plain _stupid_ to make my decisions about who I want to win in deadly combat based on who's been more pleasant. (For one, I'd be doing a terrible job of supporting Adrian on the field if my loyalty were determined entirely by who's friendly.) There is a not insignificant chance that this Seraph will decide to shoot me as soon as she's done with this job.

But that chance gets higher, not lower, if I bolt like I've got something to hide. And getting hit by a stray shot--there went another tile, but they're not coming fast, from someone distracted down there--would be an ironic way to lose a vessel. Zabina would be so _annoyed_.

There's no change in the Seraph's body language when she finds her target. A tiny movement of one finger, and a bullet zips out into the night.

She stays quiet and still for several breaths after, and so I do the same.

"Good," she says, and sits up all at once. She twists about, offering me a hand back up, which I politely decline. I can sit up without help, thanks, or giving her a better reading on the truth of what I'm saying. "That is past, and we can talk."

"Difficult, in French," I say, sitting neatly in the angle formed by the two planes of the roof, and not bolting anywhere. "Don't you need to go meet up with your team?"

"No. They're good. I told them, two, not one. I was right." Seraphim look exactly as smug as Balseraphs when they know they're right. "French _is_ difficult. These words! You should speak Italian."

"I'll see about putting it on the list." The disturbance is still echoing, but no one's adding more to it that I can hear from here. I wonder if it'll drift far enough for Zabina to hear it, up at the house. Probably not, but I'll text her about it. Once I'm done with the Seraph. "Speaking of should, I should get back home."

"Wait," she says. She's disassembling the rifle, fluid motion that doesn't distract her in the slightest from paying attention to me. "Do you know Luna?"

I shift a little where I sit. A better position for running, if I need to go, though trying to get down a building quickly... At least I'll be pointing in a direction away from where her team is. Currently. "Why do you ask?"

"You can say yes, you can say no... You ask. Yes?" She grins at me in the darkness, and my hesitation. "Yes. I heard your name. I think, who tells me that name? Do you want to go to another place? Talk more?"

"I shouldn't," I say, which is true.

"She wants to," Riccarda says, packing the pieces of the rifle away into their case. "To talk to you. She wants more. You don't?"

"I don't." I snort at her raised eyebrow, and scrub a hand over my face. Trust a Seraph to disagree with even something that's _mostly_ true. "I can't. I shouldn't."

"Why?"

"Because it's not safe. I assume that by now you noticed the part where we're on different sides. She should stay away from me, so that the people I know don't hurt her, and I should stay away from her, for the exact same reason, the other way."

"You could..." Riccarda walks two fingers across her palm. "Go. Leave. Why not?"

"It's complicated. And it's none of your business."

"Yes," Riccarda says. "Tell me anyway?"

I'm not that much of a sucker for Seraphim. (Maybe just the one.) I have a dozen good reasons, when I only need one. And she doesn't deserve any of them.

Or maybe she deserves one straight answer, for knowing who I was--or having a good guess at it--by the time I gave her my Role's name, and not pitching me right off the roof like she could have. I wouldn't have held that against her personally, even if I wouldn't have liked it much. That would've been _fair_. Especially when I managed to walk into this even with a warning.

(Maybe I was actually looking for this. I didn't think I was, but...I did get used to the excitement. And Zhune used to say that I had a death wish. I know I don't. If I really wanted to die, I'd try to switch sides.)

"I can't leave my friends. My coworkers. My supervisor, my employer..." I shrug, and try to look as if this is merely a fact of life, and not more complicated than that.

Riccarda sets the case beside her, and sits on her heels, facing me. "Why _can't_?"

"Because I owe them."

She frowns, and snaps her fingers. Tries the word in two other languages, and then brightens as she remembers the French version. "Geases?"

"No! It's..." I can't even explain properly why that question was insulting. "I _owe_ them. They've helped me more than I deserve. I need to pay my debts. I certainly won't betray them by running off to their enemies."

"Deserve," Riccarda says, "is not simple."

"Isn't that the truth."

"Yes," she says, wry now. "You're going now?"

"I should." I try a smile. The ordinary friendly type. "Could you not mention this to Luna? Or--anyone else. I'm not really supposed to sit around and talk with your kind, and some people get the wrong impression."

"Will you not tell anyone about me?"

"...I rather have to."

"Then no secrets," Riccarda says, and stands up. "I want to see his face."

"Whose?"

"You name him Sean." She leans toward me, almost nose to nose, and whispers, "It's not his name."

"...could you just not tell _him_?"

"Could," Riccarda says. "Will." She grins, and then points past my shoulder. "Go down that place. Don't meet my team."

"That's probably for the best," I agree, and make my exit before she can change her mind.

#

Zabina meets me at the door, which is not the best sign. On the other hand, I think this means that texting her about the problem was a good plan. I'm _trying_ to get better at communication, modern technology, and other things the company's so fond of.

"I don't know how you do it," she says.

"Neither do I?"

She sighs almost inaudibly, and steps back, holding the door open. "Come inside. Do you want anything to drink?"

"Not if it requires getting Giovanna up at this hour." I shove my hands in coat pockets and follow her to the office.

I get to sit down on the good chair, this time. For all the climbing I've done, I'm still reasonably tidy. Some scuffing on the knees of my pants. Zabina looks me up and down before she takes her seat. "You didn't pick up any damage?"

"Nothing new," I say. "Though it sounds like someone else had a much worse night than me. If the Kyrio was right about Death--well, I'm almost sure there was a Calabite involved, and the Seraph mentioned there were two targets."

"The Seraph," Zabina says. "Leo, why were you talking to a Seraph?"

"Because there didn't seem like a good way to _not_ talk to her, without getting shot?"

"That's not a bad answer," Zabina says. "You don't have to make it sound like a question. What's done is done, and I'd rather understand your reasoning than criticize the details." Having said that, she'd clearly like to criticize some of them, and now feels she can't legitimately do so. Her fingers drum on the desk. "What happened?"

"I climbed the abbey, and ran into a Seraph of...maybe the Sword. That or War. We talked about shooting people, a fight started down on the ground, she shot some people. I got the obligatory recruitment speech--a really short version of it, since her French was worse than mine--and said no, then I left."

"What a remarkably concise way of putting it," Zabina says. She lifts a hand to cut off my next comment. "No, it's fine. If you had discussed anything that might compromise security, you would've noticed and noted it. It's not as if you haven't had opportunity to speak with Seraphim before, and I expect you know how to pick your statements accordingly."

"I...yes." I'm still not sure how to deal with this kind of debriefing. "She did bring up someone else I know. From, uh, her side. So I expect she knows _who_ I am, or will fairly soon, and the people who know me will have my location. Unless she's not into sharing the information."

"If she's with the Sword, she likely will," Zabina says. "War holds its secrets closer. Write up a report, and I'll schedule a meeting with the Marquis."

"Do you think I could just email her about it?" Oh, the look that I get. "It was worth asking."

"Write down what happened," Zabina says, "and stop worrying about the meeting. Chaixin would scarcely hold an accidental meeting against you, when you managed to leave it safely and without passing on important information."

"She might ask what I was doing climbing roofs at this time of morning when I knew there were angels in the area."

"No," Zabina says, "that's my job. We'll talk about that later." She points to the door. "Report, Leo. You have at least an hour."

Oh, good. Enough time for me to get _really_ anxious before meeting with the Marquis.


	34. An Interlude, In Which Sean Is Not Amused

The Seraph probably would've found a way right into his tent, if he hadn't opened the flap to let her in. "What?" Sean said. "Stop _poking_."

"I know something you don't know," Riccarda sang, and coiled herself around the edges of the tent, with one comfortable loop draped as an invitation to sit down against her.

"You know several things I don't know," Sean said, but he took the offer. "It's what we call operational security around here, and a need-to-know basis."

"You're in a mood," Riccarda said. "More fun with memory pearls?"

Sean waved the question away. Answering that question in front of a Seraph would have dripped with Need To Know, and she still didn't need any of that information. "Did you just show up to taunt me, or did you want to chat?"

"I wanted to chat." She swung her head around to study him directly, some secret delight (that he would probably be annoyed by, which was only fair, given the secrets he'd sprung on _her_ at times) dancing in all six eyes. "Guess who I met!"

"Riccarda..."

"Three guesses," she said, fanning out her wings. "Then if you haven't figured it out, I'll just tell you, because you _are_ in a mood, kiddo."

"I am _exactly_ as big as you, you know."

"But much younger," Riccarda said, "so I get to condescend a little, don't I? Oh, you would've found it _hilarious_ if you'd been there--the part where I was trying to hold a conversation in French."

"French? I thought you were in Germany." Sean let his own wings stretch from the irritable mass they'd been sitting in at his back. If he couldn't relax in his own tent, talking to his own most annoying friend, when could he?

"Yes, and my German's decent, but my French is atrocious. So here I am on this roof, an eye on my whole team attempting to wrangle two Calabim of Death--I _did_ tell them there'd be a second, and they kept saying, oh, Riccarda, our sources say one, like I don't know a pattern that old when I see one, but they did listen eventually, so no one died except for the people who were supposed to--" She paused. "Where was I?"

"Roof, eye, Germany." Sean tucked his hands behind his head. Seraph-side was a rather comfortable surface to lean against. "And apparently French?"

"Yes! I had company on the roof, so we chatted for a while, and I made sure no one on the roof was shot, while I did the shooting. And now you have to guess who I ran into in Germany."

Sean scratched the side of his nose, and picked his way through a list of names that might have her looking that smug. "That Malakite of Creation that Judgment's still pitching a fit about?"

"Oh, that would have been fun. But no. Second guess!"

"Um. Rooftops. The Kyriotate you've been trying to track down for seventeen years. Lightning, right? I don't remember their name."

"That would've been a much more exciting conversation," Riccarda said, "but not in French. Come on, you're barely trying. Third guess, make it a good one."

"Not today," Sean said. "I honestly don't care. Go bother someone else."

The Seraph rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll tell you. I ran into Luna's little friend."

Sean blinked. "They sent that Elohite down to the corporeal already?"

"No," Riccarda said, all coils and amusement. "The one she met in the Marches. The one that _you_ know."

Sean blinked, and-- "Oh like _hell_ you ran into him there."

"I did, so you know it's true," Riccarda said, and shifted her coils in closer. "If only I'd recorded that conversation. Trying to talk about responsibility and certainty in _French_ , of all the human languages to get stuck with. There are relievers who could've done a better job of putting those sentences together. But it was still fun. Now I can see why she's driving people in Trade right up the wall."

"Because that Calabite is an infuriating, slippery, too smart for his own good--"

"Delight," Riccarda said firmly. "Do you know what she said, when I asked her why she couldn't run off and talk with me, instead of going back home? That she _owed_ people for what they'd done for her. That poor little Trade Seraph that Luna talks about, you've gotta see where he's coming from there."

"They are all _insane_ ," Sean snapped, "and--a roof in Germany. Why was she on a roof in Germany? Was she robbing the place?" He could come up with so many terrible explanations, he might as well get the actual one from the Seraph.

"Nope! She was climbing it. Because she likes climbing things. You just sort of want to haul her off to a Tether and shake her up and down in the light of Heaven until the rings pop out, don't you?" She made illustrative gestures with her tail tip and one of Sean's best knives. "Anyway, I thought you might want to know, since you have a whole thing about that kid."

"I do not have a _thing_."

"Opinion," Riccarda sang out, and finally put his knife down. "You totally have a thing. That's my opinion. I'll go tell Luna and her Cherub, and then I expect they'll talk to that Trade Seraph. Unless you have a particular reason to not want the word getting around?"

It shouldn't be possible to get headaches in Heaven, and yet Sean was reasonably certain that was happening to him right then and there. "No, I...don't. Not any reason that I can think of. He's not my responsibility. Or my project. Or my problem, generally, except for when he becomes my problem, and...gah." He covered his face in his hands. "Not my problem!"

Riccarda patted him on the shoulder with a wing. "Probably true," she said soothingly. "He can be Trade's problem, if you think they have that in hand."

"They _don't_ , because if they did--" Sean drew in a deep breath. "But it's not really my, uh--"

"Problem?"

"Responsibility," he said firmly. "Thanks for letting me know. That was, I'm sure, entirely born of your desire to keep me informed."

"Nope," she said, though of course in angelic she could hear the sarcasm without any problem. "I wanted to see what expression you'd make when I told you. It was great. Take care!" One more pat on the shoulder, and she finally left his tent.

Sean flopped back down on the floor of his tent, and stared up at the ceiling.

And wondered, after a moment, if that latest attempt to put voice recorders on Warriors in the field, for Seraph review, was still working out. Because that was one conversation he wanted to listen to.

Just to hear a Seraph mangle a language, though. That kind of chance didn't come up every day.


	35. In Which The Rules In The Employee Handbook Do Not Cover All Circumstances One Might Hope They Would

I am unnerved by how easily the interview with the Marquis went.

Let's be honest: I'm unnerved any time I have to deal with her. There's no helping it. I can't look at her and not be entirely aware that she could take me apart without taking long enough to put her schedule out of order. It's one thing to mouth off to authority figures who might hurt me, and another to do it to people who can kill me.

There are a lot of things I don't do because I'd like to get another decade of life. (That may be optimistic, but, still. It's nice to have goals.) Also on the list is why I told her the truth, exact and with minimal, uh, minimizing, whenever she asked questions.

She didn't ask a lot of questions. That's unnerving in its own way. She has no good reason to trust me, especially this early in my employment, but when I tell her that I had a chat with a Seraph, and didn't say anything that'd reveal secure information beyond my identity...

She just believes me. Or pretends to.

So that's unnerving, right there. It makes me wonder what she knows about me that I don't know she knows, and _that_ is about the point where I should stop pursuing circular lines of thought and find something else to occupy myself.

Zabina's office has three people in it, if you count the human secretary, and two of them have something to do. As long as we've spent the Essence to come here--and Zabina did come along, as if that was to be taken for granted, even though I got to have that interview alone--my supervisor is dealing with local paperwork. There's a lot of it. How Theft generates this much bureaucracy, I'm still not sure. And the secretary knows her business.

Which I do not.

"You could look at your room," Zabina says, while I poke at her bookshelves in a desultory fashion. "Have you set up any furniture there yet?"

"I don't know where it is," I say, because I'd honestly forgotten such a thing existed.

"It's just across the hall from Lanthano's office," Zabina says, wry for a moment. And I wonder when that particular room was set aside for me. One might almost suspect it was before I called the Marquis and begged for refuge. "Your name is on the plate by the door. Take a look. Find some furniture. There's plenty of unused equipment..." She waves a hand to indicate the Marquis's territory in general. "Most of the construction workers and painters are on contract. Set up something functional, and decide what you want beyond that. We'll have it arranged so that the mess is done while you're on the corporeal."

I leave them to the forms, and go look for my office.

Lanthano isn't in Stygia just now--or at least not in the office, and the one demonling intern I corner to ask says he's not around today, hasn't been for days, isn't expected for days--but my office is one of the two across the hall from his. The other is marked _Anargul_ , no one I've met. Guo mentioned him in the notes; I could reference those if having a neighboring office was particularly relevant. Which it probably isn't. What am I supposed to use this place for, anyway?

Maybe for a place to meet people in Hell. If I had reason to do so, except that all the people I would want to talk to here have their own rooms anyway, and...I suppose it's the sort of thing I ought to have. To fit in around here properly.

Which would be easier if I weren't a Calabite.

Never mind that.

I push open the door beside the brass plate with my name on it. There's a lock on the door, not engaged, which I could pick in about fifteen seconds, and some people could do that much faster. Presumably there's a key somewhere. Or maybe people here don't bother with locks, except as a way to suggest they might want some privacy. You can't expect that kind of thing to keep a pack of Magpies from poking through your file cabinets if they feel like it.

Which I do not have for the poking through, as the room's completely bare. Scratches on the floor (laminate, the closest you'll get to anything like hardwood in Hell without paying a fortune) indicate where furniture used to stand. I pace the room out, looking for outlets (more than I need) and anything more exciting than that. The one door in the side isn't for a closet, but a bathroom that's almost entirely filled by a large shower. 

I don't have so much as a chair in the main room. I shouldn't read too much into that. Someone else moved out, and--oh. Yes. Zabina's promotion would've moved her into new suite. Rank brings more space. In Hell, where all finished building space is carved out or built up out of materials scraped up through a frankly inefficient semi-industrial process--apparently we can't have many decent factories, because Technology is too busy testing new methods to standardize any damn thing that's proven to work--there's a rough correlation between power and territory.

The Marquises didn't carve this office out of the Stygian mountains. This entire Principality was a warren of endlessly looping and layered tunnels before--oh, maybe before my Prince ever stole his way to a coronet. Certainly before two Calabim of Theft began staking out their territory. Every room in here has stolen or won, and not tidily, I'm sure. The walls (repainted white, not long ago) and lightly scratched laminate look so clean, and I cannot begin to imagine how many people have lost blood and Forces over this room. Or the way this amount of space, so many cubed meters, add to the accounting of some demonic aristocrat's power in Hell.

Another thing it's not worth thinking about.

Zabina's set up the new suite--or at least the public-facing room--in the exact same layout as her old one. A larger desk, but she's kept the same chair, or at least one that would leave the same wheel pattern as what she used in this room. I wonder if Greed believes in conspicuous consumption and discarding the old as rapidly as possible, or keeping what they've acquired forever.

More the latter, these days. The former is so very Gluttony. But Zabina left before that rivalry turned into everyone waiting to see how much longer Greed will hold out, before Haagenti has another snack.

A cautious tap on the door turns out to be the demonling--I finally remember name, Otgonbayar. She's a long-limbed, long-eared creature who's almost certain to fledge Impudite, and so much more respectful to me than she is to Lanthano. (Everyone likes Lanthano.) "Excuse me," she says, ears folded down, "but IT wants to know if you're ready for a proper office setup? And they didn't _ask_ about preference, but if you don't state one, they're going to try to upgrade you to the latest version of the OS, so you might want to give a preference, since that one still has the bees problem."

"Bees?"

She waves her hand about. "Not actual bees! Just. You know. They're sort of...like bees. After they--um. I'll tell them you want the previous version. Also, HR wants to know if we should start sending your mail here, or keep sending it to Zabina."

"How about we keep everything how it is right now until I have a desk to put things on?" I shove my hands in my jacket's pockets. (There is nothing in there that I haven't put there myself. Good.) "Speaking of which, where can I find a desk?"

"Welllll." The demonling rocks on her heels, hands clasped behind her back. (Respectful, by the company's standards. A lousy parade rest, by Regan's standards, which are not relevant here.) "You can have one custom-made, just by talking to HR. You should probably talk to them about painters and any flooring changes you want. Most people go shopping in Shal-Mari for accent stuff, unless you want to try the pawnshops around here? Or get what they want on have it relic-made so they can bring it back home. But if you just want something to put a computer on, there's lots of leftover furniture in the back of the territory. All the storage rooms and stuff that isn't in use right now, by the ballroom."

"Buffer zone between any room opened to strangers and the real offices, huh?"

She nods rapidly. "Also, some of them have the old computers in them. From back when they were room-sized. And break rooms for the souls when they're not busy. Do you want me to show you where?"

"I can probably find my way." I've been led through the inhabited parts of this area often enough to have picked out which halls are leading to places that _aren't_. (It's all halls, never atriums. I think you need to be more powerful than this Marquis to rate anything like a grand foyer in Stygia, unless you're willing to build it out and exposed on a steep mountainside.) "And drag back a set of chairs to stack a computer on, if nothing else."

"If you tell a soul what you want, HR will get it hauled," Otgonbayar says, solemn and self-important and so proud of herself for having useful information that I don't, which she can give out. "That's what HR is _for_ , getting things done for everyone else and making the souls mind. Are you going to need a secretary?"

"Probably not." Not until I can figure out what the weight was to that question, because she wasn't asking just to be helpful in passing information along to HR. "Thanks for the help, Otgonbayar."

"Any time!" She taps one ear, and I finally realize that the black shell there isn't a growth--demonlings can look like any sort of peculiar conglomeration of bits--but an earpiece. "I'm almost always on call." She bows awkwardly, and dashes away.

Everyone here wants something, and she's no exception. I should ask Lanthano if the company plans to keep her when she fledges. Even I can tell that she wants to stay.

But the company doesn't raise its own employees, does it? The Marquis picks up other people's runaways and discards and strays. The company has proven willing to bend a little on which Band they are, even, so long as they're sufficiently damaged by the previous setup to be ever so grateful for the rescue. And a happy little demonling doesn't qualify, whether she turns into an Impudite or not.

She's not my problem, is she? I leave my empty room unlocked, and try a rap on Lanthano's door--he's still not in, of course--before I go looking for office furniture.

I take the long route. Up and down the halls that connect to offices in use, past more than one employee lounge and the brightly marked door for the IT employee, whoever that may be. The mental map I have for this place was sketchy before; now I'm filling it in properly, and working out some ideas about how big the rooms I haven't looked into must be. 

The Marquis has a great deal more space than her visible office, with at least one back exit to another hallway. (Unless that unmarked door is a storage closet. But with that lock, and in that position? Unlikely.) Probably a few exits up and down as well. This place is laid out on a single plane, but you can never forget the third dimension in Stygia, or you'll end up in a pit trap. Nearly happened to me once. And a clever Marquis--I don't think there are any stupid ones, at least not for long--is always prepared for the distant possibility of some rival deciding to expand by staging a hostile takeover next door.

I pass two coworkers in the halls, and do the polite smile-and-nod at each. No one tries to engage me in more conversation than that, which I've decided to be grateful for today. I'm not up to making friends with these people yet. Even if Zabina is about to start setting me up on playdates if I don't show a little more cooperation in that area.

Maybe I should talk to her about that, instead of pretending not to notice. But then I'd run out of plausible deniability, so...maybe not.

C gives me a wave when I pass by her corridor, and I wave back without stopping. Today is not my favored day for someone messing with my head. Even if she does an interesting job of it.

The disused parts of this building--or whatever you call a set of rooms carved out of a solid area, because "building" doesn't seem quite the right word for it--are trying to be a maze, without quite enough space to pull it off. Nothing friendly to strangers wandering through, without being quite aggressive enough to actually do damage to a visitor who got lost.

I'm not lost. I know exactly where I am. In a maze of twisty passages, not well used, that have been mopped recently but without much attention to the corners.

Having run out of nameplates, I start trying doors.

Stacks of chairs. Cleaning supplies, recent. Cleaning supplies, ancient and dried up. An entire room of broken pieces of furniture, probably from the Marquis being annoyed. (Why they've been kept, I can't imagine. Maybe they clear these out every few years.) One of those room-sized computers, unpowered and oddly sad for it. This was state of the art, for a few years, and wildly expensive. Now it's not even good for parts.

When I find the ballroom, it's a mild surprise. The layout allows for it--if I adjust for the walls not running straight along the outside of a building, but as an irregular perimeter of what's been carved out--but I didn't expect such a small door to lead into it. Of course, what the small door leads to is a space behind a hanging tapestry, as servants might use to move in and out of the place without drawing attention. The doors for making a real entrance are on the other side of the room.

The Marquis can't afford _vast_ , but it's a respectable room for the kind of party you might invite Hell's high society to. I push past the tapestry, and walk out into the center of the room. My footsteps echo in here. (Should they, with those wall hangings? Hell's physics lean askew from corporeal standard at times.) Chandelier overhead, parquet floor--this may be real wood, a fortune spent on something useless except for display to outsiders--and a high ceiling, with tapestries hung over every meter of the wall.

By now, I know what to expect in the Marquis's choice of decor. The ceiling's painted with a starry sky, bright clouds swirling through; the walls are hung with scenes of wild forests, mythological animals lurking within. (The unicorns painted on the walls in this place never _frolic_. They hide, and wait.) How any of this displays her Word, I don't know. It must've been made this way, the pattern set, before she had that Word, and then it was traditional. Her personal display.

I turn back towards the door I came through. And an Impudite smiles at me, inches away.

"I should have brought a mirror," Valentin says, while I try to start breathing again. "Your eyes were really something, in that exact moment. It's gone now."

"Hello, Valentin," I say. "How nice to run into you again."

"You don't really mean that," they say, and toss their head. Their hair falls back into place as if the gravity around them doesn't pull as hard, white gold drifting down at a pace that ignores the rest of Hell's reality. "Most people don't, so there's no reason for me to hold it against you." Which would sound like a threat from most people, but they say it so mildly. They're dressed much as they were the last time I saw them, white skirt and spotless white boots, a coat that reaches the tops of their knees. "Lanthano didn't take you here on his tour, did he?"

"I don't think he considered it something I'd need to be able to find in a hurry." My hands are balled up in my pockets like I'm tensing for a fight. I make a deliberate attempt to be less anxious. Valentin is strange, but not the kind of dangerous that would rip my throat out. Lanthano and Zabina would have given me much stronger warnings if I had to worry about that. "It doesn't look to get used much."

"Not often at all. It's been seven years since the last time." They are entirely conversational, from voice to posture, no more posed than any Impudite might be when showing off their celestial form to its best advantage. It's only their eyes that worry me, and I can't even figure out why. "Chaixin had to throw a few parties to prove everything was fine, and once people were convinced of that, she stopped." Valentin turns to the side, and offers me an arm, as if they're providing escort to the sort of party that would fit this place. "What brings you here?"

I leave my hands in my pockets, turn a little as well to suggest something more like walking side by side, without whatever they're implying by that offer. "I was looking for office furniture, and opened the wrong door."

"You should be less careful," they say. "You can open doors around here and walk into history."

"It might be easier for me to ask a coworker for a summary." I follow them along, because they're strolling back towards the door I meant to use anyway, and I'm not sure I want to find out what happens if I get unsociable around this Impudite.

"They'd all give you the wrong sorts of answers," Valentin says, and then smiles at me sidelong. "Adrian might not. Or you could ask me, if you can figure out the questions you want answers for." They pull back the tapestry to give me a clear path to the door. "You never came to see my room, and after I asked you particularly."

I duck past the hanging, and open the door. "I haven't been in Stygia very often."

"Now it'll all be excuses," Valentin says, half a step behind me, and then at my side in the hallway. "As if you meant to, and couldn't, when you were afraid all along. People are so polite when they have no reason to be."

"I don't have any reason not to be polite, do I?"

"You have _every_ reason. Any reason. You could pick one of them, right now, and take it, without anyone stopping you." Valentin steps in front of me, face to face, and I would back away if that seemed like any sort of good idea. "There's no such thing as an unmarked choice, whether you act or don't act or change or stay the same. Stop pretending it's otherwise, because it doesn't _work_."

The significant problem at the moment is that Valentin is standing between me and the exit I know leads back to populated parts of the company. Anything behind me might lead towards the outside, and walking out of this territory without knowing the location of the defenses is almost as dangerous as walking in.

And they have a point.

"You're right," I say, and take far too much satisfaction from the way Valentin blinks. "I'm being polite because I'm _supposed_ to be, especially to senior employees. Which you are. If you'd rather I be impolite on some sort of principle, I can do that for you, but you're going to know full well that it's indulgence that way, too. There's no option here where I act naturally around you without taking your status, and what people say about you, into account."

"You have such a quick little mind," Valentin says, and slips a hand up to the side of my face. "No wonder Lanthano likes you."

"Lanthano likes _everyone_."

"Not me." The Impudite smiles at me with such bright teeth, and it's very hard to look away from their gray eyes. "Which makes you wonder, because he still likes Adrian, and almost no one else can pull that off this decade." They drag their hand away from my face, all fingertips across my cheek. Feather-light touch. "Lanthano's still afraid of me, poor little boy, but he'll get over it. You shouldn't be. I won't hurt you. Chaixin was quite specific on this point." They pause, acquiring a tiny frown. "Now you're wondering whether Chaixin was explicit about this to everyone, or only to me, and how much danger it implies either way. You're thinking about this, and no one could say a thing to reassure you, because you still don't trust her."

"I could really do without you giving me a running narration of what you assume I'm thinking," I say nicely, because I would rather not admit how well they're guessing so far.

Valentin laughs, and catches my hand. "We're in a hallway," they say. "This is terrible, we can't talk here. What kind of furniture did you want?"

I trust this no more than anything before, and yet at this point bolting for Zabina isn't just embarrassing, it's a statement in office politics. That I don't trust the Marquis's orders to hold. Hell and damnation, and isn't this just both? "Desk and a chair," I say. "That's it."

"You are a Calabite of very few demands, Leo." Valentin walks briskly, my hand held in theirs, and widen my strides so that I'm walking beside them and not being dragged. "You could ask for artists, for a servant, for company on a trip to any number of cities in Hell or on Earth. You could ask me for the company's history, or Lanthano for his edited version of that. You could break holes in the walls just by looking at them, and take apart a damned soul with your bare hands. What do you want? A desk and a chair." They fling a door open. "Is this the most exciting thing you intend to do today?"

The room is full of desks. I don't know what else I expected. Most of them in decent condition, with the worst stacked up in the back and the best shoved to the sides where they can be accessed easily. "I'm not looking for excitement. I got enough of that last night."

"What happened? It hasn't hit the company gossip yet." They take a moment to be dramatically backlit, standing in the doorway, before flipping on the light in the room.

"Nothing important. I walked a little too close to trouble." I don't like that I'm being finessed into this room, and I like it even less when Valentin closes the door. And I see no good way to object, either. Don't I _trust_ the company? The employees that the Marquis chose to hire, and keep in her offices?

"What," Valentin says, a hand to my cheek again (I am sinking faster than I can swim), "you won't even give me the details?"

I shouldn't. I would like to. I am having trouble remembering why it might be a bad idea, except that Lanthano doesn't like this Impudite, and it would not be the first time that my friends don't get along with each other.

"I might," I say. "I'm not sure what's supposed to be confidential. The employee manual is no damn help, sometimes, so it seems easiest to assume I should keep my mouth shut unless told otherwise."

They sit down on a broad wooden desk (it's probably not real wood), crossing their legs the way Zabina does when she cares to, and pat the surface beside them. "If you weren't told to keep it confidential," they say, "you can talk about it inside the company. It's outside where you want to keep your mouth shut, buttons fastened, zippers up. Tell me all about the places I can't go."

I sit beside them on the desk. Shoulder to shoulder, their hand over mine. "It's also that I'm almost sure you've Charmed me, which makes all my judgment suspect. Especially since I'm inclined to trust yours, if that's so."

"You're trying to reason your way through it," Valentin says. "You can't. No more than you can logic your way out of an emotion."

"Sometimes--"

"There's no 'sometimes' about it," Valentin says, and I hush to listen to them talk. "You can't, and you shouldn't. Logic is so dull." They take my hand up in theirs, a thumb pressed into the center of my palm. "There is nothing worse in the world than knowing exactly what happens next, because logic says it must, and then having it proven true. Emotion gives us our only chance of avoiding that. How do you feel?"

"Anxious, I guess."

"Why's that?" Valentin has chosen to move me further back onto the desk, with a nudge of their knee here and a hand to my side there.

"Because this will wear off," I explain, while they help me lie back on the desk, "and sometimes I do stupid shit when I get upset about things like this."

"That time with Anthony," Valentin says, and it's not even a question.

"You did pick up my file, so you should know."

"If they were sure, you would be in so much more trouble. Chaixin pulled so many strings to pay for you. If you broke one of Andre's toy, you would have been more expensive than you're worth." Which is true, and still hurts a little to hear. They sit down across my thighs, skirt pooling at my hips. They are impossibly light, as if Hell itself doesn't dare weigh them down. "She can buy toys from Andre, but that's different."

"I know where you're going with that," I say, "and I'd rather you not."

"Because he's your friend." Valentin tilts their head to one side. "Do you think that Djinn rubbed off on you?"

"I don't want to talk about him."

"Not even with me," Valentin says. They lean forward, and I can't look away from their eyes. (It's not like Habbalah. I can still be unhappy. It's not like Balseraphs. I _know_ and I don't believe. And yet, and yet.) "What are you afraid of?"

"Too damn much."

"No such thing. There's so much to be afraid of, it stops meaning anything. The worst can happen, worse than you ever thought to be afraid of, and you're still _there_. You will find out, Leo, that there is nothing you're afraid of that's as terrible as what can happen." Valentin kisses me. They taste like sugar and spit and nothing that makes sense. "Will you come to see my office? The next time you have a chance."

"I don't even like Stygia." I am short of breath, and I'm no longer sure about the why of anything I can think about. This is not a good time for me to make any decisions about later, no matter how the _let me figure out how to help you_ wants to escape me.

"Promise," they say, light on my legs and sweet on my lips.

"Of course I'll come see you." There's a part of me that says _I would leap in front of bullets for you_ and another part that says _That's ridiculous, better to disable the guns_ , and I know it's not real and that doesn't change how comforting it is to be able to trust someone, even the wrong person entirely, for a little while. "You'll have to remind me."

"I won't let you forget," Valentin says. They rest on their elbows, face hanging over mine. "Do you know what's about to happen?"

"I can guess." I don't want to let go. I need to. This is not where I should be and never mind dignity, I need to get out of here.

Valentin presses their index finger between my eyes. "It turns off," they say. "Just like that."

"Get off of me."

"That wasn't very polite, was it?" Conversational. They can be unaffected by anything I say, because, oh, there is something so deep inside their mind, cracking apart whoever they used to be, that nothing about me could ever compare.

"Do get off me, Valentin," I say, sweetly as I can, "before I start breaking things."

"There's no need." Their hand settles around my head. "Don't you want to get better? Wouldn't you like someone to fix you properly?"

My _no_ isn't verbal, only Essence and fighting their personal symphony as it presses in around me, and Valentin shoves right back with even more Essence, so _casually_ as only an Impudite can be about quantities like that.

"You didn't answer my questions," they say gently. I'm still shaking. "Do you need a moment?"

"Yeah."

They pet my hair, and the toe of a boot traces the inside seam of my jeans. "You're afraid of being repaired," they say, nothing but lazy sympathy in their voice, and an affection that reminds me of what I am _not thinking about_ , "because what if the repaired version isn't you? You know how to be broken, and you can dimly remember what it was like before you were broken, but you have no idea what you would be after someone else took needle and thread to you. How can you trust that? It can't _make_ you trust itself, that future you that would have so much scorn for what you are now. Best to avoid it. Best to keep it from ever existing. Isn't that safest?"

"You're almost right," I say, less shaky than I was. I wish Valentin could be a Balseraph, to make me believe them properly. Or a Habbalite, to make me feel the way I'd like. "There's no point when I wasn't broken. I was made out of someone else's broken pieces, and I can't get away from that."

"Poor thing," Valentin says. They lift up to kneel over me, and reach beneath their skirt to unbutton my jeans, the tail of their coat falling over my legs. "I chose to be myself. It's far the better path, and you never got to choose it. Do you think I could fix you?"

"No," I say, because I don't think they'd even prefer a softer answer. Might as well stick to the truth. "I don't think anyone can."

"Do you think you'll be broken forever?"

"I don't think I'll live long enough that 'forever' is something to worry about, Valentin."

They slip off their coat, letting it fall behind them across my legs. I could almost imagine it weighs more than they do. "You might be that lucky," they say, "and you might not. You don't even know how to be afraid of what's worse."

"I broke my promise," I say, even though it's not what I want to talk about. Because I'd rather they understand. "I walked away from my partner. How much worse can it get?"

"So much worse," they say. "You can't imagine. Don't try." They pull my shirt loose, and slide their hands beneath it. "Tell me what you like best."

"If I say 'you', that sounds like I'm pandering. Besides, it won't last." My breath hitches when they settle down on top of me, having dealt with any remaining clothing in the way. They are efficient when they want anything, and for the moment, they want me. (It won't last.) "Literature that's subtle, and knows how to focus. Fast cars. The view from a high place no one else can reach. Knowing the truth. A really _controlled_ explosion, big enough to feel it and white out everything else."

"You want to feel it all the way in your bones," Valentin says. They've found a rhythm that's barely more than slow rocking, wrapped around me and it's so...direct. Nothing I would've asked for. "So through and through that it wipes out everything else. What do you want to forget?"

"Too much to talk about."

"You're so young," they say, and dip their head in to my throat. Lanthano would bite, and Yuliang would kiss, and Valentin flicks their tongue across my pulse. "You still taste like fire. I could forget a stretch of time longer than your entire life, and lose nothing of importance, if I sorted it to the right years. You don't have enough life to bother forgetting any of it yet."

"Maybe you would know," I say, because I disagree, and don't want to fight about this. I would almost rather not talk at all, and let their body on mine and their eyes above me be all I think about for, oh, it won't be nearly long enough.

"There it goes," Valentin says. "You could still give in." 

They are light and all but ethereal, and I can't pull away.

They laugh when the desk dissolves beneath us, and drops us to the floor. Not far enough of a fall to so much as leave a bruise. Only enough to keep them amused. "You don't want to take the floor out," Valentin says. "You wouldn't like what we would eventually reach."

"Let go of me," I say, and I can't even speak in a steady voice. (This is nothing like with Anthony. Valentin hasn't so much as left a bruise.) "Please."

"You could give in." Valentin is pushing, their personal symphony trying to overwrite mine, Essence pouring in and past me and I have my own reality. I know who I trust. I know who my friends are (even the ones I'm not allowed to talk with) and I am. All out of Essence.

It's fine, so long as Valentin knows how to take care of things.

"You make so much noise," they say, as if I'm being _adorable_ again. At least they aren't using that word. "Why don't you give in when I tell you to?"

"Because you're not usually my friend," I say, trying to piece it together through everything they're doing. To me. Around me and over me, soft and tight and so close it's moving beyond body and body, verging on Forces blurring. I wouldn't mind. I don't know what that would feel like, when it's been so long. Valentin won't be anything like Regan.

"Do you let Lanthano fix your head when he asks?" Valentin rests their forehead against mine, their hair a powder-light wave across my skin. "You could open right up and let him take everything he asked."

"He doesn't ask." I'm shivering again, and this time Valentin pets my hair, moves just a little faster. "Should I offer?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because trying to give people what they want doesn't work," I say, and there's another thing I don't want to talk about, not here on the floor of this room with dust all around us.

"Nonsense," Valentin says. Their Forces are trying to fall through mine, or mine are trying to fall apart and let theirs through. All I have to do is let them. "Give away what you like. The moment you want to. Give up and give in, while you still have the chance. You'll know who to trust by how they take it."

The door to the room opens, and I can't look away from Valentin's eyes. They'll take care of it if it's anything important.

"I'm busy," Valentin murmurs towards the door, though their gaze is still on me. "You can't leave me be, when for once I find something to do?"

I can't look away from them. But I know those footsteps, despite all my edges trying to blur.

Zabina crouches down beside us, and puts a hand to Valentin's shoulder--pushing them back--while she looks down into my face. "Charmed?" she asks, and I'm not sure to which of us.

"You have the worst timing," Valentin says, teeth glinting. "Though I suppose we knew that when we bought you."

"Entirely," I say, since the Impudite didn't answer. Maybe this is standard. I don't know what I know, anymore, and there's a shiver all through me that's not me, but Valentin's symphony running through my soul. "It's fine, Zabina."

"Did you let them?" she asks me. Her hand on their shoulder has tightened.

I don't know what answer she wants. I don't know which one gets Valentin into trouble, or gets me into trouble, or neither or both, and I can't really think straight while they're still there, on me and around me and falling into me, or maybe I'm falling into them.

Zabina stands up, and hauls Valentin bodily away. It is the first time I've seen her lay hands on someone like that. She doesn't _wrangle_ , she tells people what to do, or argues with them over it.

And Valentin is, for an instant, awkward and scrambling, face twisting into a snarl. Their skirt still swirls beautifully about their thighs; no matter the circumstances, they are still an Impudite.

"Wait there," Zabina tells me, when I would try to follow. Fix things. I would like to explain to her that it's not Valentin's fault, because I'm sure of one direction of her anger, but I can't see how to do that without making matters worse. I have fucked something up, well and truly.

"I'm busy," Valentin says, and they're not even looking at me anymore. Busy being angry at Zabina, now.

"I thought you knew better," Zabina says. It's not a tone of voice she's ever used with me.

"I haven't harmed a hair," Valentin says. Their fists curl up, shoulders back. "I haven't left so much as a mark. I have not broken _one rule_ , Zabina, and you know it. You have no right."

"I have every right to keep him from harm," Zabina says. "Physical or otherwise."

My mouth is dry and my palms are damp and I feel so Force-tattered, Essence-empty. Down one friend from what I was convinced of a moment ago. I knew, and knowing didn't help. It never helps. The truth doesn't change how it gets into your brain, any more than knowing that walls don't just fall apart keeps me from breaking them.

I would like to break things right now. But she told me to wait. And I will wait, because if I start to do anything right now, I will end up doing something...unwise. Unwise and possibly loud.

"You say that as if I was hurting anything." Valentin has drawn upon some reserves of dignity, and even without their coat and noticeably ruffled, stands straight with their chin up. They're not as tall as Zabina, which I hadn't realized before. "Integration into the company is exactly what he needs, and he's hardly getting it with you. Your corporeal property isn't exactly a social hub for coworkers, is it? If you had any sense, you would let us Charm him blind until he learns how he ought to feel."

"I've no patience for sophistry today," Zabina says. She spares a glance for me, and no longer. "Consider the loophole closed."

"I merely--"

"Valentin," Zabina says, each word sharp as broken bone, "if you try to rape my student again, I will have your hands cut off."

We are all very quiet for a moment.

"Chaixin wouldn't let you," Valentin says, and now their voice has a hitch in it. "Never."

Zabina allows this argument with a short hand gesture. "She will tell me both is excessive, and allow me one. It could easily be replaced once you exhibited some level of self-control."

"You have no idea," Valentin says, "how much self-control I'm exhibiting." They are beautiful and terrifying and I have no idea what I think about them anymore, except that Lanthano was right to be afraid of them.

"Can you get back to your room without an escort?" Zabina asks.

"Some day," Valentin says to her, "you'll understand." They kiss the back of their hand to her, and turn a smile to me. Sweet and dreamy. I can taste them on my lips. "Don't forget, Leo. You promised."

I'm still not breathing steadily when even the sound of their footsteps is gone.

Zabina collects Valentin's coat from the floor, and folds it neatly over her arm. I get myself back together. More or less. I can walk in a straight line and pretend that everything is fine, and that'll do until I know how much trouble I'm in.

"Sometimes," Zabina tells me, as if we're already in the middle of a conversation, "I wish that she would take that one apart. Some people would be upset, and then they would get over it, and we could all move on."

"But she won't," I say. "Because she doesn't do that to employees."

"Never," Zabina says, and sighs. It is such a human sound. "Except for betraying the company, and I don't think Valentin can even dream of that. So we won't be that lucky." She shifts their coat to her other arm, and offers me the free one.

This time I think I should take it.

"Don't think for a moment that this is your fault," she says. "Valentin knows exactly how far they can push before crossing an official line. And while they're not the only Impudite in the company who _will_ push, they're the only one who'd pretend they were trying to help when you were spending that much Essence on fighting back."

I would like to lean against her. Or hide beneath one of these desks. At least I have her arm. "And if I don't use any Essence on it, what do the other Impudites say? That I didn't really want to resist?"

She gives me a weary sort of smile. "The Impudites do push," she says. "They eventually learn boundaries. The Shedim push, in other ways, and they learn boundaries too. Valentin simply ignores any that haven't been made explicit rules, because that amuses them, and they...would like to be amused. Lately."

"Do the Lilim push?"

"Of course we do," she says, and takes me back to her office.


	36. An Interlude, In Which Zabina Exerts Self-Control

She spent the walk back to her office--brisk, because that implied control and efficiency, though she wanted more time to think--trying to work out where to put Leo for an hour or two, where he would be entirely safe, and not convinced that the relocation or supervision was punishment. She needed ten minutes to do some infuriated screaming inside a very private room, and at least half an hour to remind herself that the Marquis _would_ have some harsh words about the matter, despite the provocation, if she tried to tear a Force off Valentin. Or even a few digits.

The simple solution would be to give Lanthano an emergency call. He would show up, of course. In the middle of anything but a deadline-bearing delicate work situation, he would drop everything to rush over and take care of his second-favorite Calabite, and that would be, what, the second time she'd personally deferred to his expertise on the matter? Maybe the third, and he'd been the one to do the initial pull... No. It was already set precedent, and beyond unwise to turn that into a pattern everyone would expect. 

Erzebet could handle anyone, and might even get along with Leo, given a little encouragement. And because no one _had_ been so much as scratched, there were no red alerts to keep Erzebet right beside Valentin. (It was almost a pity. Not that she wanted more damage to have been done, but everything would be so much easier to deal with if she could point to a clearly broken rule. Even a potentially broken rule. Count on Valentin to be able to dodge every restriction as adeptly as--a Gamester, really. Or a Free Lilim. They found loopholes in the rules better than she did in contracts, and she'd made a career on contracts that only had gaps where she wanted them to.) But she wanted to talk with Erzebet herself, which took that Impudite off the list.

She could have locked Leo in a room with a good book, but he'd take it as punishment, and by the time she had a spare moment to deal with that, it would be set in his mind. Worse, set in his reactions. No, she needed a babysitter, and one who wouldn't make anything worse.

Yuliang might come, if she called. Show up, take care of Leo, and remember forever that Zabina could not keep her own student safe or contained. She would probably have something sympathetic and smug to add, the next time they talked, even without. About how no one could really manage Valentin anymore, and how it wasn't Zabina's fault that these sorts of things happened.

No, she wouldn't call for _that_ Impudite either.

And once upon a time she could've relied on Adrian for exactly this sort of problem.

(Once upon a time she could've relied on Valentin, and she decided not to dwell on that, because clearly she was wallowing in nostalgia instead of focusing on the problem at hand.)

She ran down the list of employees likely to be in the office, which eliminated most of the ones she knew best. Her contacts had always been stronger on the corporeal than in the workplace. Really, the best person for the job would be Captain Dio, but one couldn't simply drop a Calabite off at the Captain's office and ask for a few hours of minding. Not without paying a great deal later on.

Bless it, and she'd thought that the day couldn't get worse after the Seraph incident. Of course it could get worse. Matters always could.

And they had reached her suite, without any better ideas presenting themselves to her. Many things would be simpler if Leo had made more friends, and the worst of it at this exact moment was that Yuliang and Valentin were both right; she should've done more about that. There was such a thing as taking too delicate a hand to a long-term problem.

She led her student right past the secretary, to the back room she never knew quite what to do with. It would be a bedroom for most of the company, if they had the spare, so she'd put in a bed and couch and a few of her bookcases, nothing too much about work, and never thought to use it beyond taking a few hours for reading or meeting up with Erzebet. There wasn't much point in coming by the office in her leisure hours.

"Wait here," she said, and immediately wished that she had found a way of saying that which was less reminiscent of what had just happened in that storage room. "I'll be back in two hours, or less."

"I'll be fine," he said, hands in his pockets, wings folded against his shoulders, and trying to sound a little bored. "There are books."

"I'll send someone by," she said, though she still had no clear idea who. And she waited to make sure he was looking at her, as he always would directly if she stayed quiet for a moment. "You ran into a new iteration of a known security hole. I'll see that it's patched."

"You know I'm no good with computers," he said. He was trying to make it humor. She might've taken it as a sign of improvement with some people, but with this Calabite, she knew better.

"I need to rewrite the latest set of special rules for people who can't be trusted to use their good judgment," she said, and _that_ was catching properly in how he saw the world. "We are all rather used to employees having a modicum of sense and long-term planning. It was reasonable of you to expect your coworkers have the same, as we never would have hired you without seeing proof of it." She adjusted the collar of his jacket; it always worked its way askew, and he couldn't be blamed for that, either. "Two hours or less. I'll send someone along. Do you need anything?"

He shook his head. She hadn't really expected otherwise. And saying anything more would be fussing, useless for both of them, so she left him there.

She didn't lock the door. That never helped in this place.

Erzebet was only two turns away, and had the door open before Zabina had to knock.

"You need a stiff drink," said the Impudite. She had a desk shoved in one corner of her room on principle, and the rest was a mess of paper stacks, chairs, and shelves making a tiny labyrinth of a room only slightly larger than usual. "On me, it looks like."

"Tell me," Zabina said, falling into the nearest chair, "that they're secured somewhere at the moment. Or out. I would take either."

"Out," Erzebet said wryly, and sat down across from her. She was that rarity among Impudites, almost unpretty in her angles and posture, and then perfectly Impudite again for making these things so deliberate that they became a sign of confidence and thus attractiveness again. "They've been sent to search the pawn shops for something unreasonably difficult to find, and on a deadline that doesn't allow for many side trips. If they come back with blood in their fingernails again, we'll be back to nothing but accompanied walks."

"I thought," Zabina said, and accepted the cup she was handed, "that they were making progress."

"They're getting much better at covering up," Erzebet said, and shrugged with one shoulder. "It almost comes to the same thing. Did they break any rules?"

"Not a one," Zabina said. She tried a sip from the cup. "This is foul."

"Well, I can't afford better around here," Erzebet said. "If you don't want it--"

"I didn't say that."

Erzebet smiled at her, a bit grimly. "You're welcome."

Zabina knocked back another sip, which tasted no better. She didn't like sake when it was high quality, and this was not. "Thank you. Bless, I need to send someone back to my office to watch Leo, and I have no idea who. Can you think of anyone who can do a little friendly chatting without trying to pull him into bed or ask nosy questions?"

"Lanthano--"

"Someone _else_ ," Zabina said. "For a variety of reasons, including that boy working himself thin trying to solve every interpersonal problem he catches wind of. Ideally someone my antisocial student would like to make friends with, but I'll take whoever can fit the basic requirements."

"I could go," Erzebet said, "but then you'd be left drinking alone here." She took out her phone, and thumbed across the screen. "Baolan's never here, I would not inflict Yuliang on anyone in a bad mood, Chau's out on errands, Anargul..." She frowned. "Well, maybe if there's no one else. He's not all fussy about Shedim, is he?"

"Not that I know," Zabina said. "Though as I've only seen him work with Guo and Adrian..."

"What a set. Halyna?"

Zabina had another sip. It couldn't make the day any worse. "That'll do. I'll ask her." She put her cup aside, and wrote the Shedite a message. Which got a quick response, as did her follow-up, and that did improve matters. Being reminded that the vast majority of the company's employees were competent, reliable, and reasonably expected to do the sort of thing one ought even on short notice. "I did rather threaten to cut Valentin's hands off. They seemed to take that one seriously."

"Did you mean it seriously?" Erzebet asked, and handed her a refilled cup.

"Have I ever made idle threats? Though I let myself be bargained down to one hand, because they were right. Chaixin wouldn't let me take both."

"Idle threats are so satisfying," Erzebet said, "but only in the short term." That was one more sign of why this particular Impudite was worth drinking with. "By the time Valentin is back from errands, I will be over the urge to beat them about the head with a rolled-up newspaper while shouting."

"I would pick something heavier than a newspaper," Zabina murmured.

"They'd only take satisfaction in seeing someone else resort to violence," Erzebet said briskly. "If we have to move back to twenty-four hour monitoring, I'm willing to do it, though I'm really hoping this is an aberration and not some terrible new trend. Annoying as it is, I can't be _surprised_ that they decided to take a bite out of the new employee. It's not that far off what they would have done before."

"Right up until it turned into--I don't know how much Essence spent, between the two of them. At least twenty." Zabina closed her eyes, head resting on the high back of the chair. "How much longer do I have before the company gossip mill starts working on this one?"

"About fifteen minutes," Erzebet said, "and only that long because you lucked out on not passing anyone especially chatty in the hallway."

"Lucifer's tits, I don't even know how to do damage control on this."

"Don't try," said the Impudite. "Valentin jumped your student, you interrupted, and now Valentin is licking their fur down and pretending they meant to do that all along, while you lay out new rules. It's the truth, and it's the gist of what speculation will take people to anyway. You're a Knight, Zabina, you can get away with being arch and close-mouthed about the issue without people thinking you fucked up."

"Rank has its privileges," Zabina said. "When do you next have time to visit?"

Erzebet's mouth twisted. "I suppose that depends on...whether this is one incident or a trend."

Zabina nodded, and took her time with the rest of the sake. It wasn't enough to impair her judgment. Really, it wasn't even enough to soothe her nerves. "Between the two of us," she said, when the cup was dry. Erzebet raised her own cup as a sign of agreement, which was almost as good as a Geas, and far more polite. "I can't manage my student's social life, and I need to. He's been with the company for how many months, with all of two friends? And those made before he was hired."

"You never made many close friends," Erzebet said, "and it hasn't hurt you any."

"I had different problems," Zabina said. "And rather more experience working with groups. That Djinn broke him in ways I'm still discovering, and if he doesn't integrate properly, someone else might steal him."

"Who would dare?" Erzebet said, a little blink as she processed that information. "I mean, I suppose there are always Dukes who will stomp over a Marquis, but she had permission from the Boss, and we're still _significant_ around here. Look at our territory."

"I didn't mean from inside Theft," Zabina said, and held out her cup. "Bless, I need more to drink if I'm talking about that. It was a day of unpleasant surprises before I even got here. How long will Valentin be out?" She checked her phone, and saw she'd already missed a message from Halyna about arriving. So that was one thing to not worry about for...well. An hour and a half.

"Four hours, unless they're very lucky and fill the request early, in which case they'll probably take the full four anyway to go do terrible things to someone unaffiliated. And I'll pretend not to notice, because if I try to regulate every minute of their life, one of us is going to end up maimed or mad." Erzebet smiled wryly. "Yes, even in contrast to the current state. Maybe your student doesn't need any more friends, Zabina. If he's attached to a handful of people in the company _strongly_ , that's enough."

"He Needs friends," Zabina said. (It was easier to explain some things in Helltongue than in any corporeal language, with corporeally-stationed celestials on both sides too scattered to form a proper jargon for what they wanted to say about celestial matters. Though with the increased speed and ease of communication across distances, that was changing.) "Rather desperately, and he won't take the ones I offer him. There is nothing quite so frustrating as seeing someone fulfill a Need from entirely the wrong source simply because they're afraid of taking what's offered directly, and he's already more attached to a Free relative of mine than I'd like."

"At least you know he doesn't have problems with Lilim," Erzebet said. "I don't know what more you could do than you are already. He sounds exactly like the sort to balk if you try to force the issue too hard."

"I simply don't know how to finesse this," Zabina said. "I can train humans and manipulate them as need be, and working with coworkers who do their jobs is no trouble, but I can't manage a damaged child's social life for him. It's the sort of task that requires an Impudite."

"If you were an Impudite," Erzebet said, and crossed her ankles, cup held up to the arm of her chair, the usual posture for when she felt she ought to declaim on a point of importance, "you wouldn't do any better, because all we know how to do is make people love _us_. You shouldn't take Lanthano as an example of the breed. If you want a person to tell you how to convince someone to form healthy long-term social attachments to others, what you're looking for is a Mercurian."

"Do you think kidnapping one would help?" Zabina asked.

"Tempting at times, isn't it?" Erzebet sank back into her usual posture, which was still all angles, never looking particularly comfortable. As if she might be about to attack the furniture with an elbow. "I wonder if they ever sit around saying, if only we had a Balseraph handy."

"Probably not where Judgment can hear it." Zabina spread her fingers over the arm of her chair, and decided that she ought not have another cup of that. There was still the faint possibility that she'd have to go deliver another report to Chaixin before returning to the house, and even in the company's relaxed approach to dealing with those higher up on the organizational chart, showing up tipsy for a meeting was bad form. "I suspect a Balseraph would solve some of my problems right now, and then cause new ones in return."

"Maybe you can rent one," Erzebet said, "though it does rather fail to keep matters inside the company. Or suggest that Chaixin consider one for the next hire."

"Yuliang would throw a fit," Zabina said.

"Wouldn't she just." Erzebet put her cup away, and then set a hand on Zabina's knee. "An hour of stress relief?"

"Hardly the most comfortable environment for it."

"We can spend an hour not worrying about anyone else's delicate emotional balance," Erzebet said, "and the sound-proofing on this room is excellent. How much more comfortable can circumstances get?"

Zabina didn't have to think about it for long. "Before I forget; I seem to have acquired Valentin's coat. You can let them know that it's available for pickup, whenever they want to come by my office and ask me nicely to have it back."

"Speaking of throwing fits," Erzebet said, and stood up. "But we can talk about that in a hour, can't we?"


	37. In Which I Sit In A Reasonably Quiet Room For A While

You can tell that the Marquis holds secure territory in Stygia because there are no windows. Not one to be found in this entire place. When Zabina closes the door on me, that's the only exit from this room.

It would be nice to think that it's just the Theft part of me that gets nervous when there aren't enough exits. But that's ridiculous; I was watching my exits before my Prince found me, and I can _make_ some if the situation really demands it. In Stygia, lack of windows means you're securely built into the mountains. Surrounded by the labyrinth of tunnels, but with good thick walls, and no danger from the wind or unprotected walls set out for anyone to see.

I am in the Boss's Principality, inside the territory securely controlled by my employer, within my supervisor's suite, behind a closed door, and oh, it does not get safer in Stygia than this, does it? Which is exactly what I should be remembering, when I see there are no windows here, and can't be and won't be, not here or anywhere in these offices.

I would rather have the windowsill in my room--the room I use in Zabina's house--with an uncomfortable drop below it. Or the roof of a building that's not mine at all, with the city spread out around me.

(Never mind windows, I want a shower. But there's no bathroom attached to this room, and she told me to wait here. Not to wander around the suite and check out what sort of shampoo she uses.)

(It's not like I want to take off my clothes right now anyway.)

I pick a chair that's probably older than I am to curl up in. It's what Zabina expects, and I may as well be...predictable. People are happier when they know what to expect from a person.

Everyone knows full well that Valentin is _broken_. That's not how people who work for the company act. (Unless I'm extrapolating far too much from Zabina and Yuliang and Guo and Lanthano and...no. I have enough of a sample set to see what's outside parameters.) And so I could have expected exactly what happened, and I could have done better, and Zabina is being nice enough to pretend otherwise.

Either I'll learn how to be a proper company employee, or I'll end up dead. I can't imagine that I can keep swapping employers--even within a single Word--for much longer. Demons are big believers in cutting losses, and not holding onto liabilities. And as the Marquis hasn't so much as implied that she wants me running around proving myself in the usual Magpie style, my best bet for tilting the scales towards _useful_ instead of _liability_ lies in doing what Zabina tells me.

I've worked for worse supervisors, anyway.

I pull a book off a shelf at random, and try to focus on what it says. It is not to my taste. The nearest equivalent I can think of is Homer (thank you, freshman survey course) but it's all Helltongue, and all about demons. Myth and epic, deliberately convoluted in style, with every solid noun referred to in elliptical fashion. I have to read one line twice before I work out that the flexing of sinuous strands towards ivory surfaces is just the Balseraph protagonist sitting down in a white chair.

Well, a chair made of bones. If there's a plot, it hasn't arrived yet; the story, such as it is, would rather spend all its time referring to other adventures (not shown) of the protagonist, a thinly veiled version of Lucifer, but not with enough detail to actually clarify what those adventures were. When the text begins to describe, at excruciating length, the detailed embroidery on the Balseraph's sash (depicting yet more of his previous feats, and, if I'm reading this correctly, one that he hasn't yet performed), I give up and close the book. At this point I'd rather have one of the ludicrous pulps Yuliang reads than any more of this kind of classic.

I would rather have Yuliang around, because if I didn't tell her anything she'd be very distracting right now. She always has an idea for what she'd like me to do and an explanation for why I should play along. Or Lanthano, who would--I don't know. He'd do the _right thing_ , whether it involved a bar crawl or a quiet smoke break or anything else. He knows the right sort of thing to do. He actually understands how to deal with difficult people, and despite my haphazard efforts to be otherwise, I gather that I can be a difficult person.

There's a thud on the door. The kind of knock you get when the person doing the knocking doesn't have human-style hands.

While I'm still trying to figure out if I want to just ignore the whole thing, the door cracks open, and an eyeball on a stalk slides through the gap to turn itself around. "Hello," says the Shedite, voice muffled by the door. "Mind if I come in? Zabina asked me to stop by."

Of the few things I might want to do right now, meeting yet another pushy coworker I'm supposed to make friends with isn't on the list. But I'm being _good_. A fucking model employee and student, that's me. "Come on in."

The Shedite slides through the cracked door without pushing it any further open. She's all watery gray-teal, with fewer internal organs visible than I usually expect from her Band and a cloud of quivering wings behind her. "Well, you must be Leo," she says, and nudges the door shut once most of her body is inside. The rest seeps in under the door. "Limited number of Calabim in the place and all that. I'm Halyna." She extends a wing my way. "I'm pretty sure we haven't met before. I mostly do Stygia work, you mostly do corporeal work..." The ripple along her upper surface is her Band's equivalent of a shrug.

I do not want to touch strangers just now. I shake her wing regardless. "I think I passed you in the hall, once."

"Twice," she says, "but you were distracted the first time." She hauls herself into a chair, oozing slightly through the space between arms and seat. "No worries, it happens. What are you reading? Anything good?"

I hold the book up so that she can read the cover.

"Nope." There's a shift of contents inside her, objects shifting around in the murky blue, and I realize Halyna keeps her phone inside her. How...practical, for a Shedite. It's not as if they do well with pockets. Technology must make waterproof models with controls designed for internal storage and access, as a default matter, and if I spent any damn time in Hell, I'd know that already. "No offense meant, but Zabina has the most _classic_ tastes. In everything. I mean, this chair is probably older than you and me put together."

I glance down at the chair I'm sitting on, which is distinctly antique. "Probably, though I'm not adding much to that number."

"Most of us aren't," Halyna says, and lounges. I'm not great at reading Shedite body language, but I can figure out that much. "Zabina might actually be the oldest person in the company; I'm not sure anyone's compared notes. It's not really polite, you know? And not nearly as much fun as comparing tragic backstories."

"A popular company pastime," I say. I'm not really feeling like I'm working at full speed right now. I would like this friendly Shedite to ooze right back out the door and leave me in peace, but Zabina has delegated a babysitter, and so I'm not going to be that lucky.

"Of course," says the Shedite. She gestures broadly with a wing. "Obligatory tragic backstory! You don't get into the company without one. And if you don't talk about it, people find out anyway and then talk about it behind your back, so it's easier to just give in to the gossip. Mind, if you'd rather _not_ talk about yours, we can gossip about something else."

"If the gossip is obligatory," I say, "we can talk about yours." I put the book back in its place, between what I suspect are two other epics. They're by the same author, in any case, which does not incline me towards giving either a try. "Factions, right?" I'm trying to remember what Guo's notes said about Halyna, beyond that. I didn't spend a lot of time reviewing the details on personnel who stay in Stygia. After all, how relevant could they be?

And it's not like I didn't have warning about Valentin, so that's not really a point to the contrary.

"Factions," Halyna agrees. "It's actually pretty boring, though I can go into details if you care. Guo's story is much better. Mine's all the usual backstab, betrayal, sudden loss of support, you know the drill. I comfort myself in the middle of the night by reminding myself of how many of those people were executed in the purge two years later, which they might've skipped if they'd listened to my suggestions on modernization."

"Well, if you want modern, you found the right part of Stygia for it."

"I know!" She adjusts herself in the chair, slopping a lump of herself across the back like a hung-up coat. (Valentin's coat is hung on the coat rack in the main room of this suite. I'm glad for the closed door, and once again noticing the lack of a window in here.) "Really, if Technology was in the habit of driving vans through Stygia with bright pictures of exciting electronic devices on the side, offering candy and walkmans to anyone who wanted to jump in the back, I would've been in there in a _shot_. But I ran into, uh, someone from here instead, and it was the better option. No one _here_ ever straps you to a table for experimentation if you flunk an assignment."

I wonder who the _uh, someone_ is there. Quite possibly Valentin. I get the impression they weren't always like that.

Though they might've been a fine upstanding member of the company before and still done exactly the same. Even Zabina agreed that there is nothing in the company rules against it. And why should there be? No damage done, no work interrupted. Using up all my Essence in arguing with them was my choice, not a requirement of the process, and thus not their responsibility.

"Not unless you're into that," the Shedite is saying. "I don't judge. People are into _far_ weirder, and I'm talking just run of the mill humans on the corporeal, not even getting into the damned or demons or, I don't know, the damned who hang out with Lust." Her surface contracts into tight ripples; the wrinkling of a nose, I guess. "The smart thing to do, which I figured out eventually, is to stop looking into human heads for questions where you don't want to know the answers."

"I thought you did Stygia work," I say, for the topic of conversation that is not anywhere near uncomfortable topics. Possibly. Zabina might've sent someone to babysit, but at least she didn't send them with instructions to try to be comforting. I might have had to break something, if she had.

"Twenty-four seven." Halyna flings her many tiny wings wide, and I wonder if she almost picked Impudite over Shedite, on that seventh Force. "Except once in a while when they need some emergency computer help, and I drop down to lend a hand." An eye pops out of her center to contemplate me. "You like it down there?"

What a difficult question. "The food's better," I say. "And most of the views. Somewhat less lethal, despite all the angels running around."

"It's different if you have a vessel," Halyna says. "I remember when I was a kid and I was all 'Oo, Shedite, you get other people's knowledge and don't need a vessel, it's the best way to fast-track your way to the top! Just like my dark and dreadful Lord!'" She bubbles out a disgusted sound. "Then you get there and you're locked in these limb-y solid bodies with all these odd desires, hanging out with someone else's mind, and you have to pay rent by doing stupid shit--that's almost the worst of it, it's like going to the corporeal and then needing to sleep, or something." She waves a few dismissive parts of herself. "It's like video games without the fun."

"I don't see how that follows," I say, "but then, I don't really play video games."

"It follows because it's like--there's someone on the screen, and you make them walk around, but you're sitting back three meters away, and you're not really walking the way _you_ would walk, you're pressing the buttons that make them walk, and sometimes you bump into things, and anyway they get stopped by ledges or _chairs_ because it doesn't work like it does in the real world." Halyna's gestures grow wider, slopping her back and forth in the chair. "It's tedious and frustrating and clumsy, and in video games that's fine because you usually have a giant sword and a good plot, but on the corporeal you've got a bottle of soda and a lousy chair and a keyboard. And not enough bits that can use the keyboard. Humans only have _ten fingers_ , you know, and when you're typing the thumbs aren't good for much of anything but the space bar."

"I'll just take your word for it."

"You should try video games," she says firmly. "You'd like them, if you like books. All the story, none of the boring, unless you pick a really grindy game."

"Calabite," I say, raising a hand by way of demonstration. Five-fingered, not nearly so good-looking as an Impudite's or horrific as a Habbalite's. "Electronics do not like me."

"That's the joy of consoles," Halyna says. "You'll go through a lot of controllers, but if you sit at a reasonable distance, and make someone else swap discs for you, the console will last forever." She laughs. "Or a few years, which is forever in console terms anyway. You want to come take a look at some of the games we have set up in the lounges? There's something for everyone. Driving games?"

"I think I'd find them about like you find moving hosts around," I say. "Besides, Zabina told me to wait here."

"Like, _here_ here?" Another ripple-shrug, and Halyna settles back in her seat. "Awfully picky of her, but I guess for as long as you're reporting directly, you might as well do what she says. She can be so nitpicky. And not very considerate. Almost half the company is Shedim--around two fifths, I guess, I think we're over a third since Guo arrived--and she doesn't have one chair in here that fits us."

I do a little mental comparison of this place against what I've seen of her preferred rooms back on the corporeal. "I don't think she has guests in here very often, or she'd have thought of it. She only picked up the distinction and the new rooms back in December, right?"

"Right! It was announced officially at the company party, though of course everyone knew before then." Halyna lowers her voice fractionally. "This company _runs_ on gossip. If you hadn't picked up on that by now. I blame all the Impudites; they just have to know what people are doing, and they like being talked about."

"Why all the Impudites? Did that start after the company picked up the Word?" Industrial Espionage is, I suppose, the kind of Word that just cries out for social skills. Or very careful use of the Calabite resonance, but that's more Industrial _Sabotage_ , and I expect the War or Fire has that one, if Technology doesn't.

"That started with Yuliang," the Shedite says, with another chair-sloshing shrug. "And after that, maybe it was a trend? Or maybe the Marquises just liked pretty people. Or social people. Definitely people who don't do nasty things to anyone's head with their resonance."

Arguable, that point. It's worse than the Balseraph resonance, because lies can spin you any direction, and they're just lies you happen to believe, and you can enjoy the good ones and hate the bad ones, and it's just _different_. The Impudite resonance feels better than anything Habbalah can give you, because it's sweet and smooth and every layer at once, trust and love and security.

There's no such thing as any of those in Hell. Just people lying to themselves for a while about something lasting, and like C would tell me, nothing ever lasts. Enjoy it while it's there. I imagine that's the company policy, and why there are no rules against resonating coworkers. Lie back and enjoy it. Why _wouldn't_ you? It's not like anyone stole my Essence. I wasted it on not wanting to take what I would've enjoyed anyway.

Except Zabina was _angry_. And not at me.

So it's not as simple as everyone believing that. I don't think so. Maybe she was only angry because of all the noise, but...no. I don't _know_ , except that she interrupted, and she checked to see if I had agreed to any of that.

Maybe it's only Lilim who care about that kind of thing, and people unlucky enough to pick up some of those impressions after being made from those Forces, even when recycled.

And Halyna has pulled her phone out to poke at something. If I knew Shedite body language better, I'd be able to tell if she was politely giving me some space, or bored by the fact I went quiet when she wanted a response. Maybe I do need to spend more time in Stygia, but why would I _want_ to? I can stay on the corporeal until I'm told otherwise. No one's going to argue otherwise, even if I suppose I could do just as much language study here in Hell as I could on the corporeal, and rather less expensively. The only thing I'm doing there that I can't here--I mean, of what's important to the company, as opposed to my own amusement--is building a Role, and I'm not even doing that very well.

"I suppose Shedim do too," Halyna says, tucking her phone back inside herself. (I will not think about that at length.) "But since we only mess with human heads, and Calabim aren't too concerned with those, it's never been a problem. Demons are what they like. It's really a pity you didn't join up in time to meet Daosheng."

"No one seems to want to talk about her," I say. Safe topic. At least with this demon, apparently, unless I'm about to step on another company landmine.

"Not the older employees," Halyna says. "And the ones who she put back together. She was really good at that, Leo. She could take someone you'd think just couldn't do _anything_ anymore, the kind of person that might get broken down for parts in another place, or used as a chew toy, and make a real person out of them again."

I've drawn a knee up to my chest. Zabina will have to cope with one shoe being on the fancy brocade of this chair's seat. "Like a Habbalite."

" _Nothing_ like that," Halyna says. "She just..." The Shedite hesitates, wings quivering. "She knew the right things to say. Or what not to say. Or when people needed space, or a hug, or to get what they asked for, or to have what they said ignored because they didn't really mean what they were saying. And even with the Word and the titles and everything, she always had time for people. If she were still here, things would be better. We're doing fine, we _are_ , because Chaixin knows how to keep everything together, but...you'd be happier here, you know, if Daosheng could talk to you."

"And I'm not so good at talking to the Marquis."

"Well, no one expects you to be," Halyna says, for all that I'm treading on dangerous territory here, and I ought to know better than that. "Chaixin is trying to do all her work and all Daosheng's too, and we've got three people who just _broke_ and can't help, even if Valentin's getting better and might be back to work in another decade, and, well, you're new. Besides, you're working for Zabina, not here. So it's only natural you'd get attached to her first, and then the rest of the company, right?"

"Only natural," I echo.

"And no one doubts Zabina's loyal as lug nuts," Halyna says, and I'm beginning to recognize the spread of those dozen wings as a sign of returning cheer. "So that works fine. You haven't been here a year, and you haven't ever been to a company party, you haven't even _met_ some coworkers. No one from the Japan division, right?"

"Right. Guo said they're sort of...odd?"

"Very," Halyna says firmly. "But they get the work done and they're perfectly loyal, so..." She's fond of shrugging. "You probably won't meet any of them until the company party, except through text. Oh! Have you gotten past the sixth level on Tartarus Rush? Because we could pull out the multiplayer, if you're bored."

"I'm guessing that's a game," I say, "so the answer would be no."

"I could show you how to play," she says. "It comes pre-installed on the phone."

"I don't have a phone here yet." And the one I have back home is almost dead. Given recent semi-emergency texting, I really _should_ ask Zabina for a replacement. Or for some sort of bank account I could draw on for buying things without asking for them explicitly, or Giovanna handing me cash for going out in the afternoons, or things simply appearing because Zabina has decided I ought to have them.

"IT should've set that up for you when they were doing your office," Halyna says, actual annoyance creeping into her voice. This is the sort of thing she finds frustrating: the tech department not connecting people properly. It must be...a nice sort of life, I think, at least by her standards. "Someone's slacking. Or confused."

"I haven't actually set up my office yet. I went looking for some furniture today and got--sidetracked."

"Oh." Her wings flex, one row after another, and her phone drifts nearer the surface of her body. "I suppose it's different when you're on corporeal assignment straightaway. I mean, we had Guo on the company network by day three after he got here, and he couldn't even remember how to use a keyboard. Or maybe no one taught him. Have you seen him recently? He's not really the techiest, when it comes to remembering to write."

So I'm not alone in that deficiency. "Sure, I ran into him while I was visiting Yuliang. He's found a street gang to experiment with, and he seemed to be having a good time."

"Well, good. That kid deserves some fun in his life. Talk about _angst_." Halyna whips out her phone. "I'll show you how to play Tartarus Rush, so that you can skip the tutorial when IT gets you your own phone. Then when you unlock multiplayer, send me an email, and I'll be able to help you out. Did you ever play the prequel? It explains a lot of the lore, though honestly I didn't like how they retconned the whole Perdition expansion that flopped with that time loop thing."

Video games continue not to be my area of interest. But the topic is meaningless and unthreatening, and gives the Shedite something to chatter at me about, while I nod at appropriate moments, until Zabina returns to pick me up. (An hour and forty minutes, by the clock on the wall.) Pick me up, and take me back to the corporeal, with nothing worse to do before I'm allowed to leave Hell.

And despite the inanity of the plot, the stupid little game is better than that epic.


	38. An Interlude, In Which All Sunlight Was Illusory Anyway

You have been standing in this pawn shop for at least five minutes. This means that you entered it recently. The moment of entry has escaped you; if it were in any way meaningful, this might bother you. As you can work it out from existing evidence--the surroundings (artfully grubby, packed with junk, full of hiding places for creatures less dangerous than you), the sense of time elapsed, the chore Erzebet gave you and how that explains your presence--the memory itself is unnecessary.

You don't mind losing things you never needed.

There is a perfect white coat that should be hanging about you. It falls to the proper length; it remains spotless in all circumstances; it suits you exactly as you wish it to. Any other day it would be in your possession.

You can remember why the coat is not there.

No one would take you for underdressed. What you are wearing is, because it accompanies you, the appropriate clothing for the situation. Every creature in this shop, both the boring edible ones (worth preserving) and more varied resistant ones (no concern of yours), will remember you as someone unaffected by the usual cold winds of Stygia. The shop clerk said something to you, and you responded, and you realized that you were no longer in the right tense. That it was happening as you thought about it, not at some point in the recent past.

You couldn't find it in yourself to care what you had said (were saying? not _would_ say, you were sure of that, because there was a response coming out of that mouth, between the teeth, across a tongue that was not human, in a place where everything was made of whatever it was made of and not of what you imagined it to be) but the answer was no.

"Your princess is another castle," Artem says, lights across his face in the dark room he's set up to suit himself, and because he's afraid of bright things. You know what everyone in the company is afraid of. He has a smirk for you, and he thinks it's charming, and today you'll humor him because today he is interesting to you. Everyone in the company is, on one day or another. "But seriously, check and see if the kid has it? I last saw it when she was running down to give it to Daosheng, and I haven't heard back from her, so that's probably where it is. How much of a hurry are you in?"

You're not in a hurry.

That is a long time ago.

You were standing in the pawn shop, asking after what Erzebet sent you to find, and you were, it seems, thinking of IT's bad jokes twelve years ago when you still humored people's bad jokes. You were very good at humoring people. Even Adrian, who saved all his whining for private moments with you.

Everyone knows you'll be the next one Knighted. In truth, you've been worried about that. Just a little. Just enough to talk to Chaixin about it, to lay out your concerns in front of someone who will give them an assessment that is impersonal and tactical. Strategic, even. The sorts of long-term planning you no longer feel confident about. They mean to hand you the entire division that Chaixin currently manages, and even with the Marquises above you to watch your steps, sure to keep a close eye on results for the first decade, the responsibility is...oh, why don't you say it honestly? You're terrified.

You've had more than that before. You lost it. You lost it while you were trying to keep it, lost it to scrabbling little creatures who didn't deserve it, lost it without even realizing that would happen until it was far, far too late to do more than run away. Down into the filthy dregs of Hell, to the dark and shadowy places where the wind cuts through everything and the mountains loom up to a sky without a sun. Where it's not even terrifying, it's only tedious and craggy, mountains cutting into your hands impersonally. You can't be afraid of impersonal things.

Once upon a time an Impudite believed that impersonal things couldn't be terrifying.

You were on your third pawnshop, out of a list of six worth trying, a purely mental list, when this hit you and you nearly fell to your knees.

You did not, because some of us have a modicum of self-control, Adrian, whatever some people might say.

You walked into that pawnshop, and asked after the ridiculous thing Erzebet had sent you to find, oh, you can't even remember what it was, though you must have known it well enough to ask, and you got an answer out of the creature behind the counter. They all have counters, as if they're churned out in a factory somewhere and bolted down in one shop after another. Even the inventory doesn't change much. Rings you wouldn't wear to an enemy's funeral, corner-chewed books, endless racks of clothing for endless lines of blank-eyed rounded souls with all their sharp edges worn off.

None of them understand.

Daosheng adjusts your cuffs, because it's part of the ritual. Collar and cuffs and lapels and cufflinks, all the edge details. She's fascinated by the edges of things. Horizons and deckled paper and the tips of horns, the spines of your wings and her beloved's fingernails. "You look like death," she says, running a thumb over the point of your left horn. "Downright funereal. How do you like the boots?"

"The boots are fine," Chaixin says. She is elbow-deep in paperwork, attention on a fuzzy old computer screen (it is cutting edge, the newest out of Tartarus, set up in the office two weeks ago and more promised to Knights soon, then other employees eventually as the budget allows) but of course she knows what's going on in her own office. She always does. "Unless someone ripped a Force off the cobbler when I wasn't looking."

"I haven't been chewing on anything I shouldn't," Daosheng says, and laughs. "Valentin, tell me how you like the coat."

You stretch out an arm, and consider the lay of the fabric. The weight across your wrist, the color against your skin, the smell of thread tied off an hour ago. "It's better than the old one," you say, "though I'm nearly a wraith in this. Did you need anyone haunted?"

"Yes," Chaixin mutters. You would like it if she'd look at you, because she hasn't even seen the effect altogether yet. She has spent this entire session staring at her papers and her computer screen, which is, everyone would agree, not so attractive as you are.

"Not at this party," Daosheng says, firm in the way that's almost wrapped around to being a joke again. "We're going to be serene, sparkling examples of our rank, or at least I will, and you can be serene and sparkling and, I'm afraid, largely silent on my arm. Dio will spend the whole thing working out who needs haunting, at which point we assign a specialist to the job."

You drop your arm back to your side. "I can think of a few candidates for that specialty. Who do we know around here who spends all their time judging people for past misdeeds?"

"Be nice," Daosheng says. She's delighted with you. You are eye to eye, and her hand still lies against your collar.

Chaixin is at her side. Leaving the computer at last, and she slides a pin through your shirt, right at your throat. Pinning that collar together, high up. "If you mean to sparkle," she says dryly, "you may as well do it literally. Or should we break out even more diamonds?"

"We have enough," Daosheng says.

There are Forces shredding between your fingers. No one who mattered.

"We don't have it," says a clerk, "but I know someone who might. Did you try at the Broken Ruler?"

"Yes," you say, like the sort of person who cares about these things. These utterly pointless tasks that Erzebet sets you are the only way you'll ever get back to a world that's made of other things. Where people don't show their souls to everyone, naked and defenseless, every instant of their unsleeping lives.

You knew all about your own responsibility. About the peculiar taboos of the company, and how profoundly they could reject you, after _everything_ you had done for them, when you broke one at the wrong moment. It was the wrong moment. All the world shaken, all the floors cracked and gaping or full of invisible holes that looked like solid floor, the best and the worst alike made of uncomprehending despair, and you could have chosen a better time for that. You realized that somewhat after the fact.

You realized that before you realized that Adrian was no longer speaking to you.

Artem makes a joke about quests, and Lanthano laughs. You're both humoring the younger one, the three of you in a cluster of Impudites for people who are not in on the conversation to envy. This employee lounge has room for more than one group, and it has split into two clusters, Impudites here and Shedim there.

Itimad steps into the doorway, and hesitates there. She is a flash of green in the midst of this place, and uncertain, in a way she never is on the corporeal. She's native to that place the way you're native to the Marches. She drinks up starlight and rolls in the grass. Stygia was never meant to be her home, and she is never, ever comfortable in these halls.

You wave at her, and kick a chair her way. "Save me," you say. "The boys are talking about games again. It's just not _right_."

She takes the chair, and sits beside you. The slightest lean in. Today she's interesting to you, and maybe after this moment of company sociability, a confluence of schedules, has broken into its usual pieces, you'll take her back to your rooms and show her your etchings. It's a joke, and yet you have them, pinned up on the wall. They were stolen from the Archives, and while you didn't pull of that heist yourself, you're a little proud to have helped with the setup. Proof that you _are_ Theft, whatever people outside might say.

Outsiders never understand the company, anyway.

"We're not talking about any easy thing to find," says the creature. It is a clerk. You can tell because it's standing behind a counter. The counter is identical to the last one, aside from some inconsequential details of the contents, but this is a different shop. Unless the clerks changed, between your question and their answer.

The clerks did not change. You walked into this shop. You asked the question as anyone might have asked it. The clerk attempted to flirt with you, in talking up how difficult it would be to find what you wanted. You flirted back, because it was the sixth shop and you were almost out of time. How would you ever get back to the corporeal if you didn't complete the quests? They were meaningless. They were an experience. They gave you proof of accomplishment. They unlocked the next zone.

You walked out of that shop with what Erzebet had asked for tucked under your arm, and you did not shiver in the wind through force of will.

The walk back to the offices took longer than you had hoped. There was no time to do any pest control along the way. Vermin did gather at the edges of the territory, scuttling near the traps and testing the defenses, through deliberate action or mindless pawing. Dull, blobby things, neither sharp as demons nor smooth as humans. Not worth keeping around.

When you were twice that age, you made your own worlds. You rode your master's shoulder into the minds of those sleek, unimaginative humans, and watched them build haphazard parks and cellars and endless cliffs out of the pieces of their own memories. Nothing so perfect as what you built.

You are lying on your back in a field of grass, staring up at the sun.

Valentin, you fool, you can't even remember which world that was in.

Any world but Hell.

You are standing in the hallway outside of Erzebet's room. You must have navigated the entrance properly again, stepped in the right places, said the right things, presented your body to the machine for it to examine your Forces, as it gathered from the taste of your fingerprint, and agree that you still belong in this place.

Chaixin holds you, when you are trying to run, and says, "It won't help. It won't help, Valentin. It will not help." And you know that she is not talking to you, even when she says your name.

You knocked on the door like someone who had forgotten how to send messages, and hoped, in a petty and spiteful way, that you had caught Erzebet unawares.

She opened the door, and you handed her what she'd asked for before she could ask you in. You have already forgotten what it was. "With three minutes to spare," you told her. "Do you have my coat?"

"Zabina brought it back for you," Erzebet said. She is taunting you. She is testing you. Zabina said once, when she was drunk and almost happy, that everything was a test. It is not fair. "She said to stop by any time when she's in."

You will have to beg. That Lilim will make you crawl, and see the Need in your eyes. You cannot possibly appeal to Chaixin for help in this. There was nothing wrong with taking off your coat, but you let someone else pick it up. You didn't object. You walked away.

You walked away and took the rebuke as if you were speaking to someone your superior.

Once upon a time everyone knew you were going to be the next one in the company to receive a distinction, that it was inevitable and natural as the wind in your hair and a hand on your shoulder. Erzebet still doesn't understand.

You have just said something to her about that.

Sometimes you like her best, of everyone who's still speaking to you, because she is all out of pity. "Be that as it may," she says, "you'll have to ask if you want it back. I'll text you the next time she stops by. And you might consider keeping your hands off her student."

"I didn't hurt him," you say. This is an important point to make, especially given the misrepresentations that could have been made about you in your absence. You had better make sure. You will make people understand. (This works better with less important things.) "Since when am I not allowed to make another employee friendlier?" You wouldn't have to do that if he had been friendly enough to start with. You wouldn't have to do any of this if Daosheng could explain things to people properly.

She understands what you mean.

Chaixin understands too, you're sure. But she can't admit it. The others would never accept her saying any such things. She's the Marquis, and they ought to take anything she says, anything at all, and Erzebet has said something.

You nod to her, and you go back to your room.

All the lights on the ceiling shone down on you and they were nothing like any sun you had ever known.


	39. In Which I Am, Despite My Horror At This Concept, The Responsible Adult

There's a car in my spot, in the garage.

While this is technically unprecedented, that's only because I've had the car for less than a month, and the visitors we've had during that time all arrived while I was at home, or at least not out with the car. I pull into another spot, and take a moment to consider what's arrived. Nothing expensive. Nothing clean. Someone has been driving along dirt roads recently, and there aren't any right near here.

I lay a hand on the hood. Still warm. Well. Isn't that interesting. And with Zabina out all day--quite thoroughly out, for the first time in a week, rather than a quick trip through the city to avoid dissonance, which she seems to regard as a nuisance chore, like taking out the trash--it's also interesting to me that no one parked in her spot, which is more convenient. My car's now in the inconvenient third spot, which requires some maneuvering to reach, because old German houses don't have three-car garages in the American style.

My phone's still so new it hasn't acquired a crack in the screen. And I'm learning how to handle matters in the company. Rather than walking in the door, I text Giovanna.

_Bikers,_ she responds, and I know what that means, despite the lack of motorcycles anywhere in sight. It's not who I would've chosen to walk back in and see this evening. Or ever. The noisy, wild Magpie gangs are Theft's version of cannon fodder: under-educated, short of lifespan, and very distracting to people trying to keep an eye on what the Word is really up to. A dozen Magpie children squealing their way across the continent, disturbance and destruction in the wake of three or four groups, can look like everything Theft is doing in the area, while people from quieter parts of Theft do solid, steady, _discreet_ work.

I mean, I miss blowing up buildings and even running madly from angry Tether guards, too. Sometimes. But by and large that kind of nonsense doesn't do much for Word support, much less the sort of infernal politics I'm only dimly beginning to recognize through the company's work.

Best to keep to the vessel with a Role, while I'm still not sure exactly who's in.

Better yet not to walk in the front door while they're hanging out in the foyer. I can _hear_ the chatter, even with the door shut. So I skirt the building, with an eye towards windows that don't have drawn shades, and come in through my own bedroom window instead. The door to my room is still locked, which isn't necessarily indicative of no one having made it upstairs yet, but does make that a good assumption. These kinds of Magpies aren't good at cleaning up after themselves.

I'm quiet enough on the stairs, and careful enough about lines of sight, that I can walk halfway down the staircase and pause, watching them, while they haven't seen me. So. Let's play a quick round of Guess That Band.

The easiest one is the Calabite. Any Magpie on the road might look a touch ragged, and some of them cultivate the image in imitation of the Boss. But there's a particular style of wear that says _Calabite_ , just like you can tell the difference between jeans worn through by use and those sold pre-distressed in stores. He's a little taller than my other vessel, a little darker, with broader shoulders and windswept hair. He is entirely sure of his leadership of this group, and standing with his back to the stairs while _he_ watches them. I can't see his face from here, but his posture's easy amusement at the antics of slightly subordinate--younger, probably--Magpies under his care.

There are three others, which makes this square in the middle of the size for these groups. (Thieves seldom work in pairs, and six is just too many people to do anything quickly or quietly, though you'll find that occasionally when two groups run into each other, and as a reason why the groups of five almost never include a Djinn.) One of them's narrow and fidgety, considering the exits over and over again, hands in her pockets. Paranoid Balseraph, or Shedite? I'll know once I've seen her expression. She's the lowest in the group and knows it, which would be enough to make any Balseraph fussy. Probably Bal. Shedim who haven't been chewed on aren't usually nervous, especially with another potential host standing right in front of them.

The final two will be trouble. Impudites or Habbalah, or one of each, some kind of demon a little too interested in looking pretty and nibbling on human psyches. (I am not a great fan of Impudites this week, except for select members of the group. I may feel otherwise in another week or two.) They have Giovanna surrounded, or at least flanked, with her back almost pressed to a wall, and one of them has her cell phone in hand. Tossing it back and forth, and glancing at the screen, and then that demon (I'm sure none of these are Soldiers, or they'd be the one twitching by the front door) holds it high over her head, grinning, and says something in German that I don't follow.

I fold my arms, and wait. Not a sound from me but the breathing, and I know how to keep that quiet. I'm far enough down the stairs to be perfectly visible to everyone in this foyer, if any one of them thought to look this way, which they _should_. Do they have no sense of the third dimension? Even in Hell, things can drop on your head or grab your ankles.

It's the twitchy maybe-Bal whose gaze finally falls on me. Her eyes widen, and she twitches upright, trying to pull insouciance and arrogance around her like a cloak. Oh, yes. Probably a Balseraph.

Credit to the Calabite in the lead; he notices _that_ , and turns around. He has a cocky smile for me, and he's opening his mouth to say something equally smug when I interrupt him.

"You didn't clear the house?" I say. Helltongue. It's a deliberate choice, because there aren't a lot of Hellsworn that are anywhere near fluent in it. "Four of you, a house this size, and you didn't even check upstairs to see if anyone else was in? Let me guess. You're new."

That wipes the smile off his face. His chin jerks up a little, and he says, "You must Zabina."

"Didn't do your research, either," I say, though I'm giving him partial credit for not diving immediately into excuses for why he didn't check out the house before clustering everyone up in one room to harass a mortal. Not _much_ partial credit. "It's better to admit that than fake it, if you're not working on enough partial information to fake it convincingly. For example, I have no idea who the fuck any of you are."

This is, by the standards of social interaction among the wilder Magpies, a downright polite escape clause for him. And he gets his airy confidence back in place--it never left, just shook a little--as he does a sweeping gesture towards his people. _His_ people, not his friends who are letting him do the speaking. They're all quiet enough for the moment, trying to size me up. "We're Magpies, of course," he says, "coming home to roost, in a place good information says is a reliable safehouse in an emergency, for a price. Well, it's an emergency, and we brought payment." He flicks his hand towards each of his people in turn, counting up on his fingers as he goes. "Frauke," the nervous Balseraph. "Alida," the one holding Giovanna's phone still. "Wetzel," the other one flanking her, which I'd rate an uneasy third--the dissent is upward, not downward--in their hierarchy. The final flourish, at his own chest, "Corbl. If I'm not speaking with the lady of the house, who are you?"

"You can call me Rachel," I say, "and the lady of the house is a Knight, which you might do well to remember. How long are you looking to stay?"

"No longer than three days," Corbl says, with a little laugh, while Alida and Wetzel, I will never keep these names straight, whisper to each other around Giovanna. "What, do we need to show payment at the door before walking in?"

"Don't be stupid," I say. "We're not Greed, or Freedom. Giovanna, show them to the usual rooms." I smile thinly at my Bandmate, and switch back to Helltongue from that one set of instructions, which I offered in French for lack of better options. "When you want to discuss payment plans, stop by the study."

I step aside on the broad stairs, and watch them troop up after Giovanna. They're already chattering again, and I smile politely, in a way none of them can possibly mistake for deference.

As soon as they're upstairs, I bolt for the room with all the security equipment.

They triggered two minor alarms on the way in, the idiots. At least they had the sense to avoid the blatant ones. And this with Giovanna probably opening the door for them, because it's not the job of squishy mortal servants with a single life on the corporeal plane to stand between four wild demons and her master's silverware. God, even this group can't be stupid enough to try to steal from Zabina, can they?

I text Zabina, finding a politer way to ask for instructions than _what the fuck do I do with these idiots_ , because she'd waste at least one text critiquing my prose.

It's a good five minutes before she responds.

_Use your best judgment._

Oh, _that's_ a big help.

I make sure the systems are locked down properly, and shut the door behind me. (Locked. Because they're not clever enough to unlock doors and then lock them again, I'm sure of that by now.) Then I head upstairs to see if anyone's set a chair on fire yet.

No. Nor have they closed the room to the guest suite, which is really just two bedrooms that both open into a small sitting room that's full of tedious literature on local history and sights. (Not even architecture, which might be interesting, but sights. Like the point of buildings is to be stared at politely from a safe distance.) They're all in the sitting room, clustered together like they're afraid to spread out and pretending to just really like each other's company. Which is less convincing when their third and fourth (something pretty and the Balseraph, Wetzel and Frauke respectively) are about two words away from throwing punches at each other, and their second, Alida, has Giovanna pinned in a corner and a hand up her skirt, other hand _still_ holding that phone. And the leader of this little group, Corbl, is sprawling quite pointedly with his feet up on a chair.

"Giovanna," I say, and wait for her to lock eyes on me across the room, as if she is merely being leaned on by some bit of furniture. "Dinner in an hour. Set the table for six. Despite the weather, I think we should use the dining room. It's not the best moment for that Kyriotate to see a few new faces on the back patio."

She slides away from the Magpie, who has enough sense not to hold her in place. Not now that I've started talking. "Should I break out the good wine?"

We are speaking French, and not everyone in the room can understand us. How useful. "Not the best. Something appropriate for unexpected company. Use your best judgment."

She blinks once, and then dips her head. The very image of a proper mortal servant, obedient to demon requests, and when has she ever looked like anything but? And now she knows that Zabina's not going to cut her business elsewhere short to get home any time soon.

I lay a hand on her shoulder just as she's about to pass me at the door, and she stops short.

"Get your phone, Gio," I say. "I _do_ expect you to be easy to contact."

She pivots neatly, and walks right up to that Alida, who's pocketed it. The request she makes is almost inaudible to me, and surely made of exquisite politeness.

I turn away, as if the outcome of this is both beneath my notice and without doubt. "If you have a moment," I say to Corbl, and I have the horrible sudden realization that I'm channeling a voice I learned from Althea, let's think about that later (or not at all), "would you like to discuss payment plans in the study?"

He makes a show of looking around the room, then swings his feet off the chair. "Not much to do here, is there," he says, and saunters after me. He probably thinks his smile's sharp.

"It depends on your interests," I say blandly. Then I give him nothing more, not a word or gesture or change in expression, until we're in the study Zabina uses for meeting with people who aren't particular trusted.

I close the door lightly behind us.

"So, what," Corbl says, flopping into a chair, "is dinner part of the deal? Or just standard services? Because--"

"I've seen worse," I say. There's a certain pleasure in interrupting people who don't expect you to do that. The surprise makes them pause, and gives you space to push the advantage. "Lucifer help me, I've seen worse, but that's not saying much. How new _are_ these kids? Did they walk out of a Tether to blink up into the sunlight and say 'Gosh, what's that big glowy thing up there, and why do my eyes hurt' three days ago?"

"We're not _children_ ," he says, pulling a sneer together. He's still off-balance, but I give him another sentence worth of explanation. Just enough rope to hang himself, really. "We just pulled off a heist like you would not believe."

"Oh, I'd believe it. And I believe you've got a little more sense than those idiots, because you came here. That's where I stop handing out free points." I sit down on the edge of the table Zabina uses for writing out correspondence, taking care not to knock over the pen set. "Do you know how many alarms you set off, walking in here?"

"We weren't trying to--"

"Because I'm betting you don't. Which means that you were probably setting off alarms somewhere else, and you've got pursuers on your tail. Enemies dangerous enough that you decided four demons, a regular combat squad, has to _run_. You show up here, and you don't know how to recognize the person in charge. Do you think every safehouse is completely unknown to all enemies? 'Safe' is _never_ completely true. It's a measure of probability. Do you think every safehouse is staffed constantly? That if you walk into a place where all you have is an address and a name, everyone you meet will be the right people?"

His lips are clamped together, and his hands clutch the arms of the chair he's sitting in.

"For one," I say, "you should keep in mind that Knights take it personally when you steal what's theirs. Or damage it. That includes their servants. If you want something, ask. Giving out gifts carelessly is _also_ a way of showing off wealth, and less likely to end with your hands cut off."

At least I have his attention. He takes his hands off the arms of the chair, fingers flexing. He is not stupid enough to break something, though he's thinking about it. "You want us to move on--"

"After stopping here, and leaving a stolen car in the garage? During the day?" I run a hand through my hair, and huff out a breath. "I'm looking into security matters. Your security risks increase noticeably if Zabina comes home and kicks you out for what you've done. Or, worse yet, gets home, notices something missing, and decides to hold a grudge."

"She's with Theft," says the Calabite, like he's no longer sure I am. "She'll understand."

"How would you steal this house, Corbl?"

He frowns at me. "What kind of question is that?"

I sweep a gesture around us. "Humor me. How would you steal a place like this?"

"...a whole lot of moving equipment," he says. "It's not exactly portable."

"No," I say. "You steal a place like this by slipping inside human society until they think you're one of them, and walking away with the title. Maybe it takes twenty years of setup. And at the end you have an enormous house with all the amenities you could like--though honestly the wireless gets spotty outside, because of all these stone walls--where people like _you_ , who only steal what they can carry in the trunk, can escape surveillance." I point at him. "Thus. Dinner. You bring those three kids downstairs, sit them down at the table, and keep them from chewing each other's faces off or taking the mortal's pants off for the duration of a pleasant meal. We'll talk business. They might learn how to use a fork. After dinner, you show me what you intend to give the Knight in exchange for this mild inconvenience. And then I'll help you figure out how to keep moving without your pursuers picking up your trail. Deal?"

"Why should I do anything you say?" he demands. Posturing is mandatory; he has a reputation to keep up. But he wouldn't be asking it like that if he hadn't already made up his mind to do what I said. Right now he's just looking for loopholes.

I take a sheet of stationery from the table, and fold it in half. In half again. In half, diagonally. "You're not stupid. You got them this far without anyone visibly bleeding or on fire. So work it out yourself." I apply my resonance to the edges of the paper. "Why should you do something I say?"

"Because you'll knock my head in if I answer wrong," he says, all mocking. Oh, he's sure the four of them could take me.

I toss him the lump of paper. He's fast enough to catch it. "Don't be stupid. You do what I say because when Zabina's not here, I'm her representative. You're not afraid of me. Be afraid of her. Be _respectful_ , and think more than three days ahead. If you do this right, the next time you stop by you'll get more help. She's a Lilim, if you hadn't heard. She believes in judicious reciprocation. You're a good houseguest, and suddenly you get such excellent hosting."

"Unlike today." He will comply. He is not cowed enough to be gracious about it.

"Oh, Corbl." I drop off the desk to my feet, and give him a sweet smile. "If I was being a bad houseguest, I would have sent Giovanna upstairs with beer for everyone, and poisoned it. There's more than one way to break things. You'll get a lot better at being a Magpie once you figure out some of the less direct routes."

The Calabite looks down at the paper in his hands, and unfolds it. Doesn't everyone like a pretty paper snowflake? "You're a _Freak_?"

I resonate the stationery again. A neat line down the middle, so that he has two halves in his hands. "Zabina believes in subtlety," I say. "And in regular meals. You have an hour to knock some sense into those kids. If you can't manage that, well, you won't set off any more alarms on the way out than you did on the way in."

He snorts, and crumples the papers in his hand. Because, I suspect, he couldn't get reality to listen to his insistence that those things be destroyed. Sometimes reality doesn't cooperate; another part of growing up is learning how to better disguise when your resonance has just failed you. "Hey, if a lecture on table manners is what it costs to stay a few days, they can nod along and pretend to care."

"It'll do them good," I say. And because there's such a thing as pushing a point too far, I do him the courtesy of letting him return to his people on his own, rather than escorting him there.

A lot of locked doors are going to be unlocked, and rooms snooped through. I'll pretend not to notice. So long as nothing's stolen, broken, or planted, it's within tolerances for Magpies.

Giovanna I find in the kitchen, chopping vegetables like she wishes something else were under her knife. She twitches when I step inside.

"Careful," I say. "I still don't know any Songs that re-attach fingers."

"Are they actually staying for dinner?" she asks, head bent over her work. Subservient. What one expects from a servant.

"That's the plan. I give it one to four odds they'll decide to bolt instead."

"Everything will be ready in time," she says, because she doesn't feel that it's her place to ask why the hell I would do something like this.

And there are questions that aren't really my place to ask, either. Like how often the demons who stay here treat her like that. And whether Zabina approves, or disapproves, or simply...doesn't consider it important, so long as no damage is done.

It's really none of my business.

Like that ever stops other people from interfering with _me_.

"I conveyed to that smug bastard at the front of the pack that he and his should keep their hands off you," I say. "Out of general respect for Zabina's property. If anyone does otherwise--" They might well use their resonance, and oh, she will not feel safe making a fuss. "Tell me when you can. I need to back up what the rules I laid out, or Zabina will have to fix the mess herself. Did either of those two try to resonate you?"

"I don't know," she says. She sweeps what she's chopped aside into a bowl, and grabs an onion. "Nothing that made it through. It's not as if I can tell, until afterwards."

She doesn't want to talk. And it's not any of my business.

I leave her to dinner prep and set up in the security room again. If anyone wants to wander the halls and try the doorknobs, I'll be able to see it from there, a few Songs aside. (And those I'll hear.) It's the most useful thing I can do until dinner.

I'm not sure how good my best judgment is. But. Nothing of Zabina's on fire yet. That counts as some kind of a success.

#

My opinion of the Magpie children drops further when not a one of them finds the bugs in the guest suite before dinner. The Balseraph's the only one who bothers to look, and no one's taught her how. She checks lamps and the corners of the ceilings, under the beds, while the Habbalite--I'm nearly sure on Alida--mocks her for the attempt. Their conversation tumbles back and forth between German and Helltongue; I keep half an ear on it for any dangerous phrases and otherwise don't pay it much attention. Their secrets aren't relevant to me. When I'm talking with them, we _will_ keep to Helltongue, as a demonstration of superiority over the mortal who can't follow along, and maybe they won't work out that I don't speak German. I have to get that fixed.

They get into two fights that go as far as physical violence, but it's all puppy scuffling. No bleeding, no breaks, no real intent to do harm. Talk about posturing. These kids grew up in Hell, where people could _see_ how small they were, right up until they scraped their way up to corporeal duty. And did anyone train them? Maybe Corbl, if he was tagging along with a more experienced group before. But I wouldn't be surprised if they got dropped down on Earth, all four together, with nothing but their vessels, car keys, the local language, and whatever knowledge they picked up from media and rumor floating through Stygia. You can get an awfully skewed view of how the corporeal world works if all you have to go on is Perdition movies about sexy car thieves and cat burglars.

When I look at it that way, the Calabite's not doing a bad job. He can get all three of them to listen to him instead of ganging up on him, and he got them this far--he even had enough sense to think of a safehouse--after some heist. It'd be nice to sit him down in the study and talk to him seriously about how to run a group like this. What to watch out for.

But he's a self-conscious, self-centered young demon trying to look like he has everything under control. He won't take any advice handed to him directly by someone who doesn't quite outrank him. Not officially.

And he's not really my _problem_ , once he leaves here, except to the extent that he might bring trouble back down on the house. Or in the general theoretical loyalty I should have to Theft as a whole. It's to the benefit of Theft if all its Servitors--

\--well. No. 

I don't understand the politics of Hell much, I really don't, and I haven't been asked to start learning them. Not even by Zabina, who has been making ominous noises about Latin recently. But I do understand that Theft is often considered a low priority by many of the militant, aggressive Superiors on both sides. Including ones who loathe my Boss, but don't see a lot of reason to go harass him in person.

Because everyone knows that Theft is a lot of noise and flash and nuisance, but not particularly dangerous. Shine a light on a pack of Magpies, and they flee. You can probably shoot a few down on the way.

Corbl and his wild band of kids--two of them are rolling around on a bed right now, according to the video feed, sex and argument at the same time--do support Theft. They steal things. They make people nervous about thieves. But they're also living proof, however temporarily, that most of Theft isn't all that dangerous.

And if someone catches up with them and kills them, that's one more bit of proof that no one should harass us too closely. Because we don't deserve that level of attention, do we? Look at how easily we fall over when anyone bothers to try.

None of these kids has a patch on Wren, who can shake down an apartment without anyone knowing she's been there. Or on Yuliang, who can sweet-talk a nervous Shedite of Technology into selling out its own team. Or on Zabina, who can sit down at a computer and make someone else's accounting dance to her tune.

If they live another decade, maybe they'll learn some of that.

Maybe they'll never even notice how little regard for their survival the Boss has. Or maybe they'll consider it reasonable, like the viciously earnest young Warriors I met in Gehenna. Knowing full well they were sent out into meatgrinder battles so that only the best and strongest (few of them thought "luckiest" even if it was true) would come back. After all, coming back proved their superiority, and how that pleased all the little demons trying so hard to believe their own personal symphony's conviction that they were the center of the universe...

Giovanna, thank goodness, knocks on the door before I can follow that line of thought too far. "Dinner's ready in five," she says, when I've opened the door. She won't step inside. Quite possibly she's not allowed inside; I never thought to ask. (There are a lot of things about Giovanna that I never thought to ask Zabina, and maybe it's time I corrected that.) "Should I go tell them?"

Safer for me to do it, but she's the mortal. She runs the errands, if I'm going to look like I'm in control here. "Yes, and please tell me you haven't actually brought out the good wine."

"I found the cheapest white in the house that's not for cooking. We buy it by the case for these sorts of things."

Smart enough to know when I've given her an order in front of strangers that I don't actually want her to follow, or smart enough to follow Zabina's usual instructions despite my orders? Either way, she's exactly the sort of servant Zabina needs. "Good. I'll show up at the dining room in five. Call if anyone starts breaking things before I arrive."

Probably I should be more nervous about walking into a dining room full of poorly trained demons and telling them to mind their manners. But I'm not. Maybe Zabina's confidence is wearing off on me.

#

When I walk into the dining room, all four of them are milling about, the little Bal testing the latches on the window. "Evening," I say, all pleasantry. "No name cards, on such short notice, but most dinners don't have those anyway. Corbl, would you mind taking that seat over there? Alida, just there to his right, Wetzel across the table, and Frauke, you can sit over here." I take my own seat once I've indicated places, and wait for the other Calabite to sit down.

Head of the table for me, and foot of the table for him, with his second in command at his right hand. I don't know that much about formal table seating, and I've completely ignored any attempt to alternate by gender--it wouldn't work with four and two, counting myself on the women's side for the night, in any case--but that's as near as I can give him to a place of authority. It also lets me put that damn Habbalite neither opposite nor adjacent to Giovanna, who gets to sit at my right as the nearest thing I have to an ally in any of this. Or a subordinate.

And wonder of wonders, they all fall into the appropriate chairs. At which point Giovanna immediately appears to begin service. Some sort of pasta (which is probably going a ways towards stretching what she bought as a meat-primary dish for two or three), a white wine none of these people will recognize as anything but good (because Zabina doesn't keep bad in the house), and I stop paying attention to the details after that. The food is there as a prop; I have every confidence it'll be good enough to not distract, and it doesn't have to do otherwise.

"So," I say to Corbl. "Tell me about your heist."

This is the question he's been desperately wanting ever since he walked in that door, and I'm not sure he realizes that himself.

He starts the story with all deliberate care; he wants to look good, both to me and to his team. By the time they're describing the break-in, it's a whole-group affair. Even Frauke, who's sporting new scratches along one cheek, chimes in with her explanation of a security system she spotted before anyone else (she glances at Wetzel, but doesn't name him) could trip the alarm. It's the kind of wild tale that Ash would enjoy. (Maybe I'll tell him about it secondhand, with additional commentary.) Giovanna refills glasses, and I have four demons falling over themselves to explain just how clever they were at swiping books from a collection of particularly expensive ones, when they'd come in just meaning to check for a wall safe and maybe take some jewelry from the house.

The story gets more muddled, and a little less self-congratulatory, around the time security descended in response to--not an alarm, apparently, but some neighbor noticing what shouldn't have been there. That's a guess, not anything they know, but I can believe it. A strange vehicle parked too close to an expensive house, one alert neighbor calling a friend to see if they had visitors in their absence... And that's assuming these kids were clever enough not to turn on lights, or wave flashlights around in a room with windows, while they were searching for something worth their time.

So the escape went poorly. (I send Giovanna out of the room for a dessert wine; I'll sacrifice one bottle to keeping them talking about the part they're less proud of.) No one caught or shot, but some faces were seen, and their vehicle--

\--they drove the car they used in the robbery all the way to a safe house.

Occasional leading questions about their strategy, which I have been making sound like curiosity and not the advice it really is, cannot begin to address that one.

Well, any question of letting them stay the night is out. I'll pass the license numbers on to Zabina, who can check for what databases have picked up on that info and might be keeping an eye out, but that's outside my area of expertise. What I _do_ have skill in is paranoid trail-breaking techniques, picked up from when I was running from celestials who wanted their important artifacts back. No one chasing a set of old books--unless these kids were ridiculously unlucky and were up against celestials, in which case I doubt they would've made it this far--will get past that.

I make some approving noises at the right moments about what little they did _right_ in their escape, with credit for not having the police knocking on our door five minutes after they arrived. "Some bad luck," I say, glad that I have learned to lie through my teeth, "but good handling of it. I find that dealing with bad luck is half of a job well done. We'll want to get you on the road again within two hours, and within one hour is better." I drain the last of my glass, and stand. A quick word in French. "Giovanna, bring the usual road maps to the study before you handle cleanup." Back to Helltongue, and I have to admire how well she's handled sitting through this entire dinner of not being able to understand much of anything said at the table. "Corbl, would you meet me there? Along with anyone else who needs to review the details. Anyone who's not driving, let Gio know if you want drinks sent upstairs."

God, I'm not looking forward to this next conversation. Either I find a way to drill caution into this kid's head, or I do a fancy little song and dance to convince him to be careful on the way out, without really increasing his chances of survival much beyond that. I'd rather do the former, but I'm not sure I'm up to it. The latter will have to suffice.

Alida moves ever so casually after Giovanna. As if she happened to find that same direction interesting. She's not as good at subterfuge as she thinks she is, and it's no wonder that a team with a Balseraph and Habbalite and Impudite on it aren't even _trying_ socially manipulative theft, with this level of skill.

"Don't worry about the cleanup," I tell Alida, with a better imitation of casual conversation. "The mortal will take care of that."

"I wasn't--" Alida stops short, as a little sense catches up with her indignation at me supposing she might mean to do anything so useful as wash dishes. "Dibs on the showers," she tells her companions pointedly, and stalks out into the hall.

Baby Habbalah are never as clever as they think they are. But you can say that about most demons of that age. If anyone in this group has more than eight Forces, I'll be shocked.

I take over the study, where Giovanna's already brought a load of maps. "When you're done with cleanup," I tell her, "come back in here." I glance over at the door to the hall, which Corbl hasn't opened just yet. "Bring drinks if you need an excuse."

"Do you think getting these people drunk will help?" Giovanna asks, a little closer to subordination than she's been all evening.

"Bring drinks _slowly_ if you need to, and clean the mess in the kitchen at the most leisurely pace you've ever used. I'm getting rid of them soon." I lower my voice another notch. "If they bother you while you're working, that's my business."

"I know, but--" She takes a short breath. "I'll be back shortly."

"Take your time," I say, as the door opens. "We'll be a while, and I don't want the sink full of dishes when Zabina gets home." I swap back to Helltongue, motioning at the maps. "Care to show me what route you took up here?"

Oh, Corbl would very much like to do that. He's especially proud of a part where they drove in one direction for a while, then turned around and went the other. Does he think they follow the cars with bloodhounds these days? Maybe next they'll drive backwards to confuse everyone as to what direction the tracks indicate the car was going.

"We need to get you out of here before it's too late in the evening," I say, as soon as he's done. "It's either that or wait until morning, and speed's better."

"If we wait until three in the morning," he says, as if he's informing me of something perfectly obvious, "no one will be on the roads."

"Which makes your car stand out a lot more, doesn't it?" Well, maybe we're not doing the song and dance where I watch out for his delicate feelings. "You didn't fuck this one up completely, but it was a near thing. Because I don't want the headache of getting the authorities off our back, if you get caught, it's in my interests to _keep_ you from being caught."

"We did _great_ ," he snaps, drawing himself up for standard kiddy bluster. He drops the package he brought to the room with him into the middle of the maps. "Take a look at that. Under a glass case, with its own security alarm, which I took care of. Tell me that's not a good haul."

I slide the wrapped book off the maps. "It probably is. So here's your first choice: do you want to split your team and meet back up, or no? Some of this depends on who's a good driver and sensible in your group, since you'd have to split Frauke and Alida off for the other group."

Corbl snorts, planting his hands on the table. "Girls and boys?"

"No," I say, and do not add _you idiot_. "Your second and your fourth. If you put your third and fourth together, your fourth doesn't trust your third to lead, and they fall apart the first time they disagree on what to do. Second and third, they're going to spend the whole time arguing over who's really in charge. So you have one legit split. Besides, do you think Alida wouldn't take it personally if you split the group and trusted charge of the second party to Wetzel?"

This is enough to make Corbl think. I am deeply heartened to realize he's capable of this. "We should stick together," he decides. "None of the other three are much good at driving."

"So that's one decision down. Now. Do you have a destination, other than away? Somewhere that you can bounce through happily for a week while trouble settles down. Places you've been before, and didn't have trouble in, would be ideal. And where you speak the language. You haven't annoyed in Switzerland yet, have you?"

"No one who can tell it's us," Corbl says, and he can keep that smugness in a place where it's vaguely justified.

"So that's where you're going. A little indirectly." I pull out another sheet of Zabina's good stationery, which she may yet hold against me, and start copying out the route I'm going to advise. "Every place I put a star by the name, you stop and switch cars. At least six blocks from the car you're leaving behind, and try not to park it illegally, or in front of anything expensive. Mid-range cars are best, time allowing. Can your team handle that?" Which is the politest way I can find of asking, _can you handle that?_

"They can get through locks," he says. "Like nobody's business. We made it this far, didn't we?"

"You've got a team full of people with mind-fucking resonances," I say, "and that whole job, you never tried to talk your way out of trouble. Why?"

"That's not reliable," he says. "Not like my resonance. People shrug that off, sometimes." Though humans don't, not very well at all, which means his team's not good at resonating anyone in the first place. "It's better not to be seen at all."

"True, if you can get it. But you should get your people to practice. Not on big jobs, but little between-times stuff. Get someone to buy you a cup of coffee, or let you into a club. Practice will make them better, and that's one more option you have on the days the cops do catch up and see who you are. Frauke, for example--"

"Can't do much of anything," he says, "except locks."

"Spends all her time twitching at shadows. So make her do your scouting. Alida wants to shove people around, so point _her_ at human problems you want to make go away. You've got options, and they're not best used in making everyone learn what you're good at. Specialization is the whole point of teams. Or you might as well do it yourself."

And if he doesn't learn to specialize, he'll have to do it all himself, because he'll lose these people. To other gangs or to angels or to stupid, avoidable corporeal trouble, deadly or otherwise.

"Don't tell me how to manage _my_ people," he says. "Not when you don't command anything more than one maid."

"Not this year," I say mildly, and straighten up from the table. "Here's a route that will work best for you. I'm sure you'll modify it as necessary if you run into more bad luck. Do you want to head out this evening, or in the morning?"

"You're not even going to look at the payment, are you?"

"I trust," I say, "that you've provided something worth our while. It's for Zabina to decide if that's actually the case. If you've overpaid, then you can expect a warmer welcome on your next trip through."

"There could be a brick in there," he says. "For all you know."

"Corbl, if you handed me a wrapped brick, and then stood around in the room for this long, where I could find out? I don't expect to see you again."

He laughs. "Because you think I wouldn't dare to come back."

"Because that would be a sign that you were too stupid to live very long." I hand him the sheet of paper. "I don't think you're stupid. You just don't have a lot of experience. Five years from now, maybe you'll be swanning through cocktail parties with Alida on your arm, pretending to be the kind of people who go to things like that."

"And walking off with all their jewelry?" He is, at least, amused at this notion, and pleased to imagine himself there.

"Sure. Or their confidence that you're exactly the right person to trust with their investments. There are a lot of ways to turn with Theft."

He shoves the paper into an outer pocket. It's less likely to fall apart while he still needs it, there. And he gives me more serious look than before. "Stealing houses."

"Stealing countries. It is a pity Zabina wasn't here tonight. She could give you some stories about _that_ , if you catch her in the right mood."

"I wouldn't want a country," he says. "Where would I put it?" His grin's sharp, exactly what a Calabite of Theft should look like. "We'll head out tonight, thank you _oh_ so much for hosting, and leave your shit alone. Even that pretty car in the garage. Yours?"

Someone did some very fast snooping between the end of dinner and this meeting. Maybe he will live another five years. "Mine," I say agreeably, "which means it's Zabina's, because what's mine is hers."

"Convenient for you, isn't it?"

"Do you think I'd sign up to do what a Lilim says, twenty-four seven, if it didn't come with some perks?"

Something more for him to think about. Maybe he'll find a mentor to serve and learn from. (Maybe he'll find a partner.) He shrugs this off. "They must be, and more than having that girl to use. It's a _nice_ car. I expect it makes up for a lot."

"Have a safe trip, Corbl. I'll be downstairs if you need anything before you leave."

That hint, he does take. And I keep a damn close eye on the cameras until he's collected all his people, his _own_ car, and left the property.

Tripping the same damn alerts on the way out as on the way in.

I track Giovanna to the kitchen, where she's busy drying the second-best plates by hand. "They're gone?" she asks, without looking up.

"Just drove away."

"Good," she says.

I could offer a hand with the rest of the clean-up.

But I think she'd rather do it herself.


	40. An Interlude, In Which Zabina Checks Her Records

Zabina did not believe in worrying about what she couldn't change. This was more principle than practice, admittedly, but the principle was there. The worry did her no good. Consequently, she gave her full concentration to the party she was at, and thought very little of what her household was doing with visitors, except to reflect briefly on the fact that she had not made the wrong choice in deciding to come alone. Lucifer knew the child needed practice in these sorts of events, but this was not the week for that practice.

She was resolved not to press her student into the kinds of social situations he balked at for, oh, at least one more week. No one should have to deal with Valentin and unpleasant new social experiences in the same fortnight.

Now, Giovanna would have enjoyed the party, and been a pleasure to bring along. But she did not quite want to leave her student alone for long stretches this week, and look at how that had turned out. The right call. She could take pleasure in having guessed correctly, looked at the odds and made the wiser, safer decision, which was then proven to be better than the risky one.

This was almost a sufficiently reassuring line of thought to keep her from worrying until a message arrived from Leo stating that the Magpies had left. (And a moment later, the same information from Giovanna. They weren't coordinating. She would not worry about that.) As no subsequent message arrived detailing problems, she had no reason to cut her evening short.

Still. It was a slightly uneasy drive home.

No strange cars waited in the courtyard or garage, though someone had stomped across the edge of a flowerbed. Zabina checked once for new messages before she left her own vehicle to enter through the front.

Giovanna was there with a mop. And tired enough, no wonder given the time, to be startled at her entrance. "How was the party?" asked the girl, as proper as always. One could set clocks by that steady attention to propriety.

"Exactly as expected," Zabina said. She put a hand to the girl's cheek. "What happened?"

"Nothing much," Giovanna said. "One of the little gangs showed up. Absolute _children_ , with no manners. We put them in the upstairs rooms, served them dinner, and then shoved them out the door." She swallowed once, and shrugged. "Nothing important is broken or missing, that I've discovered so far. And she was very polite to everyone. She didn't hide in her room _this_ time."

So the little demons had tried to use what wasn't theirs, but not succeeded to such an extent that Giovanna was willing to speak about it. Zabina patted her on the shoulder. "Go to bed. The cleaners will deal with this on Monday, and we haven't any guests tomorrow to worry about."

"None expected," Giovanna said wryly. She accepted a kiss on the forehead, and took the mop away. She would go to bed, now that it had been given as a command, and it would do the girl some good. Humans needed sleep, no matter how much they might prefer otherwise.

Demons did not. She sent a message to Leo, and went to her bedroom to change to rather more comfortable clothing before returning to her office.

He was already waiting there, frowning at his phone. In the female vessel. It fit tidily into the chair, and could have curled up there. He had also gone too long between bothering to set himself in order; his hair untidy and clothing rumpled. That body cried out to be set in order.

She knew better. Just as she knew that he only looked up a moment after she'd entered not through lack of attentiveness, but because he knew her footsteps well enough not to be concerned.

"I should've bugged their car," he said conversationally. "Just to see if they followed the directions I gave me. I suppose it doesn't matter. No one who matters will believe they stopped here with any kind of permission."

"How terrible were they?" she asked. She could always review the video herself; what her student told her would be a useful summary, and also a measure of what he considered important. And what he wished to tell her, of that.

"Not too aggressive, which was good, because they must've fallen out of a Tether last month." He pinched his nose between his fingers, eyes closing for a moment. "They don't know how to check for alarms, or lose a tail, or even figure out how close behind them a theoretical tail is. The number of things they don't know is overwhelming enough, it makes me look like an expert."

She found that an interesting assessment from someone who'd spent most of a decade robbing Tethers, with only a few vessels lost in the process. (More importantly, no Forces lost.) "A set of little idiots?"

"Four of them, each less competent than the next. I shuffled them to the guest suite while I figured out what to do with them, to keep them out of the foyer. Fed them dinner, to see if they could pick up on basic human skills, and, god, Zabina, they were _not_ paying attention. I think the youngest would've tried to eat soup with a fork if we'd served any. They're going to get eaten alive. Walking around with this big flashing sign over their head telling anyone Aware exactly what they are..." He took a quick breath, and shrugged. "Anyway, I gave them some advice and packed them out again. I haven't counted the silverware yet."

"Any damage to the property?"

"Not that I've noticed, but I haven't done a thorough sweep yet." His mouth twisted. "The Habbalite kept going at Giovanna. I diverted that the best I could, so I don't think she did much damage. I would have rather poisoned the lot of them and buried the bodies in the garden, but that seemed impolitic."

"Slightly," Zabina said. "We'll watch the accounting, but it seems to have been a less bothersome visit than some we've had."

"Verbally, they were politer than Adrian," Leo said. His fingers plucked at the threads on the knee of his trousers. "Maybe we should set up an exchange program. He learns to be nicer out loud, they learn to keep their hands to themselves."

That was not the sort of thing she wanted to hear. Nor had Giovanna implied that--well. Leo wasn't likely to confide in a human about any such trouble. "Do I need to remove any?" she asked, and sifted through the Needs in his eyes when he looked up. Nothing useful, and when she tried to look for what was relevant, all she found was the headache-inducing fuzz of the Symphony refusing to return her phone calls.

"I suppose that depends on the rules," Leo said. "Is Giovanna staff, or is she property?"

Zabina did some rapid recalculation. No, of course he wouldn't take that sort of interference from children with any patience. She would have come home to blood on the carpet and worse. "Both," she said. "Being human, and thus both sentient and subordinate."

"I can tell them not to break the windows or steal the forks," Leo said, entirely serious now, "but I don't know what to tell them--I don't know what the rules _are_ , Zabina, when it comes to Giovanna. I know enough to keep them from hurting her, but that's a verb with a lot of range."

He was a Calabite with an unusually Impudite-like approach to humans. And he was not merely asking because he wanted to know how much protection to give her servant in the future. "The limits vary," she said, because the truth was almost always the best way to deliver a proper education. "Strangers with poor impulse control should keep their hands to themselves in all circumstances. Friends and coworkers are allowed more leeway. In the areas between the two, I expect visitors to ask permission, which isn't always granted."

"And sometimes it is," Leo said. Pretty red hair fell almost into his eyes, and he was doing the opposite of huddling. He was sitting up straight and carefully, despite the disorder on his vessel, because this he meant to pay a great deal of attention to.

"Sometimes it is," she said. "You may, in my absence, assume that the answer is no, to anyone outside the company. Those inside the company know my tolerances already, and to stay within them."

He tilted his head to one side. Not a characteristic gesture, but one he'd picked up from elsewhere, and which came out rarely as a sign of...well, she hadn't worked out every single detail of her student's body language yet. Call it stress, or focused intention. "Should I assume the same about myself?"

"You're not property," she said. "You're my subordinate."

"With all due respect, Zabina, the distinction is a bit of a technicality. We belong to the Boss, who's agreed to let the Marquis own us in turn, and she's given me to you. Just because I rank higher than Giovanna by virtue of my Force arrangement doesn't change the essential line of authority here. Does it?"

"You are my student," Zabina said. "It is _different_." She didn't enjoy the need to weight her words, rather than delivering them steadily. "You are my responsibility, in both education and protection. I am not about to throw you to the wolves."

"No," Leo said, wry now, in one of those quicksilver shifts of tone he deployed when moving away from an uncomfortable topic. "I was already raised by those, which makes it history."

"You can throw my words back at me, or you can learn something. Pick one."

His lips pressed thin. Then he ducked his head. "Sorry. It's been a night. But that's no excuse."

She waved off the apology, which was rather like accepting it. No doubt the exact details of the evening's events would come out once they weren't distracted by other matters. "It's as I told you with Adrian. From those above you, fulfill any reasonable requests. Reject unreasonable ones, or refer them back to me. I trust you to use your judgment, because to date you've demonstrated good judgment."

"Despite that thing with the Seraph," Leo muttered.

"I wasn't about to mention that," she said, and got a startled look out of him that almost turned into a smile. "You've proven you can deal with pests like that group. Demonstrate that you can deal adeptly with humans, peers, and superiors. Then we'll see about sending you on more independent work."

"Is that the full list? Because I'm pretty good with ethereals, but I couldn't say that I'm particularly adept with animals."

It was a good sign, of sorts, when her student talked back. (As distinct from _arguing_ , which was usually a sign of a problem; either she'd misread how far she could control him, or he'd misunderstood what she wanted him to do.) "Luckily for us all, this century doesn't insist on using horses for transportation." She tapped a nail on the desk, one sharp note to remind him to focus. "The majority of the company's work involves dealing with people. Learn to do that adeptly, and the rest is details."

He ducked his head. No more back talk, and maybe he would be thinking about what she had said.

She sent him away from the office. Of course he would think about what she said. The difficulty was that she still couldn't predict the conclusions he would subsequently reach, having run all her words through filters built by other people. Part of her job was to disassemble those filters, but there was no way to do it directly. That was the realm of Habbalah, and she had never liked their results.

#

More pressing company business finally having been addressed, Zabina pulled up the surveillance recordings at four in the morning. The arrival of that Magpie pack indicated what had happened to the edge of the flowerbed, with all four of the rowdy, careless children spilling out of the garage in an untidy line. She followed them to their entrance, audio up, and kept the garage records playing. To when Leo arrived, and...ah. He _hadn't_ known they were there. Not until he arrived, and sent a message. By the time, and the reaction on the interior camera, to Giovanna.

Who had, she could only conclude, never alerted _him_ to the presence of the other Magpies. Not until he asked outright.

Zabina tipped her chair back in a way she would never let a student witness, and considered this, as the tapes played on.

One did not encourage personal initiative, past a certain point, in servants. Even trusted, reliable servants known to react in a useful manner to circumstances they hadn't been specifically trained for. But neither was it anywhere near ideal behavior to have Giovanna passing information only to her, and not Leo.

_Stall them until Leo gets home,_ she had told Giovanna, and given no further instruction. Why go into tedious detail, when she could expect that her constantly reliable servant would act appropriately?

She ran through the tapes in greater detail than she particularly enjoyed. That bout of posturing and confrontation upstairs. The dinner. The meeting between Leo and the children's leader, in the study. No one had mentioned the payment, but it was probably waiting in that study still, half forgotten for not being of much interest to her student.

Or for being of less interest to her student than how she would react to the general news. He had lost the habit of flinching at certain moves in the physical sense, but the flinch was still there in less visible places. While he might not be in any habit that she'd noticed of bending the truth, he bounced wildly between defensive explanations aimed at avoiding punishment, and a tendency to fling all the details that might incriminate him down in front of her at the first possible moment. The evening's explanation had been more the former than the latter.

After a certain amount of consideration--of what everyone in the house had done, and she did not particularly enjoy contemplating the psychology of tiny demons she was unlikely to ever meet, but it was not _quite_ a waste of her time--she sent a message to Giovanna, and waited for her to arrive.

Her servant appeared looking suitably tidy, but...ruffled. It was to be expected. The girl couldn't have had more than three hours of sleep, and was dressed in the simplest outfit she could put together neatly on a moment's notice.

"You didn't tell him about the Thieves in the house," Zabina said. "Why?"

There were several glib answers available to Giovanna, some of which were plausible. Zabina had not, however, picked an idiot for a servant. "I thought she deserved to be surprised," Giovanna said, hands gripping her knees. "And that it wouldn't matter much, since she'd see their car in the garage."

"You can't think of any scenario," Zabina said, "where he might've walked into that group unprepared?" The silence was the answer. "Would you like to speculate on what might have happened then?"

"People come by all the time," Giovanna said, "without causing you any trouble."

"When I'm home. So did you trust Leo to handle these strangers as well as I could? Or did you expect them to cause him trouble, and to blame it on him? Or did you simply not _think_?"

"I didn't think," Giovanna said, nearly inaudible.

"Don't lie to me, Giovanna. I will not stand for it."

"I _didn't_ think they'd make any trouble for you," Giovanna said, and lifted her chin to hold Zabina's gaze. "I thought they'd be a bother to her, the way Adrian bothers everyone, but they'd never dare cause any trouble for the house, because that's _yours_. I wouldn't risk anything of yours, you know that!"

"Giovanna, _he_ is mine." Zabina drew in a sharp breath. It never did any good to lose one's temper in front of a mortal. At least not a mortal one wished to keep around. "He went to some trouble to keep _you_ undamaged. Or do you think he made a show of your relative positions, in front of those children, merely to amuse himself? Those children, who were young enough to do damage to my property, and then thoroughly regret that act once I caught up with them, because they were. Not. Thinking."

Giovanna swallowed. She was a good servant, even an excellent one, in most circumstances. A portion of this difficulty was Zabina's own fault, for not having spotted the slide from personal dislike to actual hostility.

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I am entirely sorry."

"Sorrow is beside the point. Don't do it again. You aren't required to like my student in the slightest, but you must give him respect. Not merely as a demon; as my representative, in my absence. Do you think I would have left you to that pack of idiots if Leo hadn't been on his way back, and competent to handle the situation?"

"No, Zabina."

"Can I trust you to keep him informed in the same way you would deliver information to me?"

"Yes, Zabina."

"Then go back to bed," she said, "and don't mind breakfast. You may show better judgment when you're better rested."

#

She received her student at the breakfast table with nothing but bread and coffee. That set him on edge, but not unreasonably so; he had noticed the discrepancy in what was usual, determined it wasn't an immediate threat, and proceeded with a reasonable degree of caution. He'd also done his assigned reading, which was to his credit, given the previous evening. She rather suspected he'd set aside his usual free hours for that purpose.

"I spoke with Giovanna," she said, after they had finished with the French.

Leo did not pause in dragging jam relentlessly across the surface of his chosen roll, as if it required a protective coating against the hazards of the morning. But his eyes did flick up towards her. "How's she doing?"

"She has reconsidered the order and timing of the alerts she sends to other members of the household, when unexpected guests arrive."

"Yes, well." Leo took a precise bite from his roll. Already his hair was falling into disarray. She had once though he couldn't be bothered to brush it; after making a point about it a few times, she'd realized that he had no ability to keep himself tidy, beyond a certain point. "Can't really hold it against her. She has a few reasons to be annoyed at me."

"Why should she be?"

"Because she worked damn hard to be what you wanted her to be, and all I had to do was show up to stand above her in the hierarchy. It's not exactly fair."

"Many things in life aren't, Leo." She considered his brief nod. "You had others in mind."

"Those kids. They don't even know what their chances are." He snorted, and grabbed another roll, peeling it apart between his fingers. "No education, no safeguards, no _sense_. You could throw a dozen of those into a two-month course with the right teacher, and double their survival rates. But their failure also serves Theft, so no one's going to give them that. Even though it's their lives on the line, for the service of the Word."

"And that is?"

"Unfair." He smiled, cold and fast. "But very pragmatic."

"What in life is fair?"

"Nothing," he said, "except what we make so." His gaze dropped down to his plate. "I'm behind on my Chinese work. The text is coming more easily these days, but I'm having real trouble following the audio clips, and I'm sure my accent is terrible."

She could have made a point of pursuing the topic he wanted to drop. She saw no good reason to upset him, when she could instead remind him that small kindnesses were available. Available, when she decided to grant them. "Would you care for another trip to China?"

"It would depend on the catch," he said. "But generally, yes."

"It's not a catch," she said. "It's simply an entry on the other side of the accounting sheet. I would send you there under your Role, and in company."

"I'm not going to like this, am I," he said, with admirable grace.

"No," she said. "That's one of the reasons I'm offering you the choice instead of insisting you take the trip."

"I don't like flying already," he said, and finished with his last roll through a tightly controlled burst of resonance. "And, yes, I realize I need to get over that. But I'd like to go. Would you tell me how much worse it can get?"


	41. In Which I Get Practice In Socializing With Those Of Unequal Rank

The airport in Munich isn't particularly unlike those I've visited in North America. The food is expensive (if composed of a much higher percentage of sausages), the passersby are harried, and no security line in the world moves briskly. I have set up camp with two hours before our flight in a sausage-bearing restaurant, in the nearest thing I can find to a private booth, while I wait for my contact to arrive.

"Contact" is a strong word for this. What I get to do is escort some human Adrian used (and Zabina was suspiciously vague on whether he's Hellsworn or a servant or just a pet, though she said it was safe to discuss the broadest basics of celestial matters with him) through two flights, at which point Adrian meets up with us and takes over the body for the last leg of the trip.

If I didn't want the promised vacation, I could skip the last leg. She even offered to let me skip the job entirely, and send Giovanna along to do the work. Which was...not insulting, exactly, but maybe a little pointed. Can I be trusted to do a task so simple the human can handle it? Yes, I can. However much I dislike airplanes.

And flights aren't not half so bad without Zhune in the seat beside me. Probably. I haven't really tested the theory before today.

I've had one beer--it almost seems mandatory, once we're doing Traditional Sausage--and I'm considering a second, or maybe a third to make this whole process go a little more smoothly, when a man hurries up to my booth. He hasn't any more luggage than a laptop bag slung over one shoulder, and he's not much older than my vessel. (Which is, I suppose, not much older than me, if you try to map years lived to apparent age in human terms.) Someone appears to have been shopping from the sort of catalogs that show attractive twenty-somethings traveling through Europe on their trust funds, and he's got the sort of face Baolan would pick out of a club to drag away for an hour.

"Sorry I'm late," he says, dropping down into the booth across from me. "Rachel, yes?" His accent's faint, and for a moment I can't work out why I'm surprised at what he's saying. Until I recall he's speaking English, which I haven't gotten a lot of lately. He leans across the table, offering me a hand. "Do you work for Adrian, or one of his friends?"

I am a good employee. I'm being _pleasant_. I shake his hand, and smile at him, though not in the way I would if I were trying to seduce this idiot. (Zabina hasn't asked that of me at all yet. I assume there are Impudites available if that kind of job comes up.) "One of his friends," I say. "Did you check your luggage? Our second connection's short, and anything checked has to go through customs again."

"This is all I have," the man says, and pats his bag. He hasn't offered his name, and no one told me--he does at least match the photo I was shown--so I'm not about to ask. "I like to travel light. Pick up in the middle of the week, and just _go_ somewhere exciting, right?"

I give him a more dubious look. As if he's the one making those decisions. "You want a drink before the flight? We have two hours to kill yet."

"When in Rome, right? Let's have another round. I'm buying."

Over the next hour and a half, I have three more beers. Spaced as best I can, cushioned by more food... Might as well admit it, I'm trying to dull the pain of conversation with this man. Adrian's tastes in humans appear to run towards the dumb and pretty, or at least the sort of person who is so amazingly shallow that any intelligence he might have brained itself diving into that pool a long time ago.

It's not even that he's obsessive about fashion. Yuliang cares deeply about fashion, and she's not _boring_ about it. (She also knows more about it than this man does; it's clear he's just parroting reviews he's read, even when talking about his own preferences.) Or that he's a pretentious git who goes on about the places he's visited, and his deep connection with the natives, who in his anecdotes are always desperately ready to admire him and share some local secret. It's that he knows a demon rides his body around to do work--some of it dangerous--and doesn't give a damn.

He gets to travel, and always comes to his senses well-dressed and with his credit limit still looking good. Maybe there are pluses from a human perspective.

I'm not sure if he knows about the corruption. Maybe he can't tell the difference. Maybe he doesn't _care_.

"It's so good of Adrian to send you," he says breezily, between one interminable travel story and the next. "Otherwise I might get seated next to someone boring on the plane. Would you believe there are people who get on an airplane, an opportunity to meet strangers from around the world, who don't want to talk at all? They just want to sleep, or read, or stare out the window..."

There is not enough beer in the world.

#

I get on the next flight, after the first layover.

And I do not resonate a hole in the side of the plane, through which I might fling this man. Or myself.

Zabina had damn well better be proud of me.

#

We landed in Moscow right on schedule. I've lost track of what time anything is, but the monitors in the airport say that the time is right. This airport terminal looks like all airport terminals. Maybe they're processed in some sort of Tartaran vat, and then catapulted into appropriate cities from the depths of Hell.

The man beside me, who's never yet given his name, heaves a dramatic sigh, and then turns to me with his hand out. (He's proud, to an annoying degree, of defaulting to handshakes. Like I care how he wants to greet or dismiss anyone. At this point, I'd prefer the type of polite greeting that doesn't make me touch him. We've sat thigh-to-thigh on two flights already.) "It was great meeting you, Rachel," he says. "Let's do this again some time."

I shake his hand. So very polite. When Adrian sifts through his memories, there'll be nothing to complain about, unless he wanted me to be _less_ polite to this asshole, in which case he should've sent more specific instructions. "With the amount of travel you do, I'm sure it'll come up."

"I'm sure it will," he says, and chuckles. "Did I ever tell you about my trip to Uruguay? You see, what most people don't know about the place--"

"Excuse me," says an elderly woman, tapping him on the shoulder. "You dropped this." Or so I infer from tone and hand gestures; the language is presumably Russian, and I don't know a word of that. It's not even on Zabina's secondary list, last I checked.

He turns around to look at her, and takes her hand. When he looks back at me, that's Adrian behind his eyes.

"Nice to see you again," I say. Bland and polite, as is still more or less appropriate.

Adrian does not appear to believe this comment at all. Or perhaps he doesn't understand it; I'm not sure he speaks English, and I'm sure he doesn't speak it well. (Perhaps he disbelieves whatever I say on principle.) He beckons to me curtly with one hand, and stalks away across the bland airport halls without further comment.

I hold my tongue and follow. Zabina sometimes appreciates questions; I doubt Adrian does. (Though he'll criticize me for not asking them, later, because he's that sort of charmer.) If I can play nicely with Adrian and his pets, then surely I'm socially adept enough to get some independent assignments soon. That's humans and higher-ranking demons ticked off the list; Yuliang and Lanthano and Baolan should all count as peers; and really, who else are they going to test me working against? Hostile demons and angels? Those I have plenty of experience with already, and she knows it.

We are not heading to our terminal. With the next flight not taking off for hours yet, it makes sense, from a human perspective, to go look for food and amusement instead of sitting at the gate the entire time. Somehow, I can't see Adrian caring about either. But he is adept at keeping a low profile, when we're not hitting research facilities in the middle of the night.

Strictly speaking, he kept a low profile all that night. But he had my help. I don't mind getting no credit for the help, because that's standard: it's my job, not a favor. It would be nice to get some acknowledgement that I knew what I was doing, and did it well, even if not in the exact manner he would have chosen. Which is what makes it two people working together, and not a Kyriotate running multiple bodies around under its solitary direction.

Once upon a time, I would've pushed harder and harder to get some recognition. Or resented the lack, and held it against the person who wouldn't give me any. I'd like to think I've grown beyond that. Adrian is a Shedite and a Knight; he's too damn busy to care about my feelings. I'm lucky to have Zabina paying any attention to that at all.

"Are we going anywhere exciting?" I ask, when I realize Adrian's leading us right past the security checkpoint. Needing to stand in _that_ line again on the way back will add at least half an hour to the process, on top of whatever trekking he's planned on; the layover is long, not infinite.

This time, I remember to say it in French.

"No," he says. "Are you capable of holding your tongue unless you have an important observation to make?"

"Certainly, sir," I say, and shove my hands deep into my pockets.

Adrian knows Russian, which should not surprise me, though I can't judge his mastery of it. Enough to get us into a taxi and driving away from the airport. I watch the kilometers tick past on the meter, and map that again when our next flight is supposed to leave.

If we miss the flight, it's his problem. And maybe trusting his judgment, even when it looks bad, is part of the test. I keep my mouth shut and take in the wonders of Moscow scenery and traffic, airport-adjacent edition.

Lousy traffic means that the fifteen-minute cab ride hasn't taken us far at all. We get out of the cab at a tediously corporate hotel that's built like every other damn corporate hotel across the planet. There are probably a few identical to it in Shal-Mari, on principle. It's exactly the sort of place Zhune liked to pick when we were traveling, and just walking into the lobby makes me feel...odd. Tense. Unreasonable, but there it is. I'm no great fan of hotels anymore.

I follow in Adrian's wake. It's no great effort to play the Role; I can cue up an air of weary irritation without even thinking hard about it. I've been on two legs of a long trip, I've been stuck next to a man who no one likes for both of them, and it's entirely human to look like I'm not at my best pleased right now. It's a good cover for working out what we're doing here.

Most likely: our flight's been delayed, and we're spending the extra time somewhere more comfortable and private than the airport itself. Less likely: Adrian has work to do here, and has brought me along to help, or to keep an eye on me while he does it. He wants a long private conversation, and is willing to rent a hotel room just for that privilege. Unlikely: he's decided to abandon me in Moscow while he flies on, and see how long it takes me to figure it out and fix the problem.

And various other even less likely options, most of them more uncomfortable on my part. I'll assume the flight was delayed. Never assume that new trouble is personally directed when it could easily be explained by the vagaries of the world.

Adrian can be polite to the desk clerk. He can be _charming_ to her, in fact, with a smile that's only slightly condescending. Of course he can. He's a professional, and the kind who doesn't waste his skills in places they're not needed.

I glance around the lobby, and idly work out what it would take to drop this building. It would depend on how fast and subtle I needed to be, the one working against the other. Contacts as well, because if you have a weapons dealer ready to talk--and you'd think that the War would be a lot chattier with Theft, given the overlap in interests there--that makes everything much easier.

One of these days I should find out what Al's up to. Discreetly. I'm not sure how much the Lilim talk to each other, but Zabina might be able to track that down just for the asking. And it's worth asking, in terms of a potential security hole.

"Pay attention, Rachel," Adrian snaps at me, though I was perfectly aware of what he was doing and where he was standing.

"As you like," I say. When he turns his back, I exchange a look with the desk clerk. She's sympathetic, if only in expression.

None of the humans ever looked at me like that with Zhune. He was too damn good at being all charm and elegance and sex appeal in front of witnesses. Even in front of me, sometimes. It was enough to make me doubt my own conclusions.

Hell, I still do. But they're not relevant anymore.

We maintain our silence--polite on my side, grim on his--up the elevator, down the hall, through the door, and into a hotel room that could have come from Houston. With the curtains drawn, the only hint of the difference is the preferred language in what little text exists in view.

I clasp my hands behind my back, hand to wrist like Regan taught me, and turn to watch Adrian. In silence, as he prefers, but he should get the hint.

He drops the laptop bag on the bed, and strips off his coat. There's an irritable flick to how he pulls it off his wrists, as if he disapproves of having the fabric in contact with his skin, but he still hangs it up in the closet afterward. "Nothing important to say, then?"

"Not really."

His host looks nothing like Zhune's vessel. Not quite the right ethnicity, though I'm not a great judge of these things. Not quite tall enough, nor as well built. And when he glances over at me, irritability written across his face, it almost helps. That's not an expression to worry me. "Do you drink that much on all your assignments?"

Ah, yes. The part where he can riffle through his host's memories. "Only when I'm going to be stuck on a plane for that long."

"You're supposed to provide an escort. Not a drinking partner."

"I'm pretty sure I could navigate an airport dead drunk better than that man could sober. I'm not sure he could navigate his way out of a cul de sac, sober or not." Oh, that was snarkier than I'm supposed to get with people who outrank me. "I can certainly refrain from drinking on duty when escorting your hosts."

"Try," he snaps, undoing the buttons on his shirt. "The only reason I'm not sending you right back to Zabina is that you did reach the right city on time."

I'm supposed to be insulted. Honestly, I can't be bothered. He's just being...snide. And petty. "Understood," I say.

"Yuliang might not notice the difference if I handed you over to her drunk," he says, "but I had expected better."

He's a good liar. I suspect he actually believes that when he says it, as if he wouldn't have had the exact same line no matter what I did. "Certainly," I say.

That gets me a sharp look. If the disbelief is mutual, it's only fair. "Keep out of trouble for fifteen minutes," he says, "if you can manage that." He hangs his shirt beside the coat, and stalks away into the bedroom.

I don't relax out of parade rest until I can hear that the shower's not only running, but hitting a body beneath the water flow.

Once upon a time (about half a year ago) I had my habits down for what to do in hotel rooms I didn't want to be in. Most of those habits aren't appropriate here; all the ones involving alcohol are right off the list, and of course Adrian grabbed the shower first. I take over the obligatory desk, and find the obligatory thin pad of paper. For what this place is charging us by the night, you'd think they could offer better than thirty-two sheets and a ballpoint pen, even if they do assume we'll steal everything that's not nailed down. But no.

I spend a sheet of paper on working out the general layout of the hotel (based on others of this sort and what I've seen so far), and where I'd lay out the explosives of various types to take it down. Simple and boring. I break that paper down for the sake of tidiness and not having someone raise awkward questions with the authorities if they find it in the trash.

On the next sheet, I work out a basic redesign for this place. Something a bit less corporate and a bit more attractive. I'm all for atriums, but so many hotels design them like the point is to echo every possible sound up and down the halls; the worst put a pool right in the middle, which is a lovely idea until there's someone shrieking next to it at two in the morning and bouncing the noise right upstairs. Which reminds me about some ideas I've been having about sound insulation (and lack thereof) at Zabina's place, so I use a few sheets on going over ways she might improve the place.

I mean, I don't think she's willing to take out a wall and completely redo the foyer, what with all the historic value and so forth. Nor is she likely to want to build a guest house in the back of the garden as the cover for a secure underground facility. Even Zabina doesn't have the money to pay for the kind of hijinks required to keep the local Kyriotate from noticing _that_ going in. Still, it's worth speculating about. I could reuse portions of my design from that project I did for War, since they never demanded work-for-hire complete control of the results. To be fair, copyright is a fuzzy matter when it's crossing between Hell and Heaven to start with.

If there's a publisher in Perdition secretly churning out edited, stolen copies of whatever books they write in Heaven, I'm not sure I even want to know.

When the shower cuts off, I start paying more attention to what Adrian's up to. But all he does is step out of the bathroom a minute later and work on getting dressed, with a fresh undershirt from his bag. If he's not going to start throwing around orders, I will play the part of the self-amusing responsible employee and not bother him.

He's setting his cuffs in order when he stops by the desk to look down at what I'm doing. "Why are you wasting your time on this?"

"Didn't feel like reading any more Dumas just now." And I only packed the one book along, dictionary aside, on the principle that small objects sometimes go missing in her apartment. Not just on purpose; it's hard to find _anything_ in there after she's started tossing clothing around in her quest for the perfect outfit. "Can I help you with anything?"

There is a fascinating lack of reaction on his face, aside from a single twitch in his jaw. I wasn't _trying_ to prompt him towards something like counting to ten before answering, but I'll take it.

No, wait. I'm supposed to be _good_. Respectful. Dutiful. Diligent in the face of unreasonable requests. I have got to stop taking entertainment in annoying people who deserve to be annoyed. At least when they outrank me.

"Get rid of that," he says. As if it is taking some effort to speak.

I tidy all the papers I've used into a single stack, and resonate it into powder over the wastebasket. "Anything else?" --damn, that sounded cocky too. I'm not sure how to turn that off. At this point, anything I do or don't say will come across as impertinent. Adrian's fault, but I'm supposed to learn how to compensate for his flaws. That's the whole point of having subordinates, isn't it? Making up for what the people in charge can't do, or do badly.

"Do you expect that to be relevant?" he asks. "Any of that."

I spread my hands. This is not the time to point out what my second contract with the Marquis was for, though he ought to be aware. "Would you like me to do something else?"

Adrian points to a chair near the window. The uncomfortable type so common to hotel rooms, unable to decide if it's a dining chair with too much upholstery or an armchair without enough padding. "Sit over there," he says. "And don't touch anything."

I swap to the chair he has decided is more appropriate for me than the desk chair, and lay my hands in my lap. Because I'm spending a great deal of energy recalling what Zabina told me and how much I'd like to get some independent work, I don't say anything. Sarcastic or otherwise.

Adrian glares at me a moment. Then, presumably satisfied that I'm just going to sit here, as requested, he stalks away to finish his dressing.

I wouldn't mind a shower myself, now that it's free. Nor holing up in this chair with my book, or any number of other things precluded by the _sit_ and _don't touch_ instructions.

I drum my fingers on my knees. My jeans are wearing through there. If he makes me sit here much longer, I'll have artfully distressed jeans, and not merely comfortably worn ones.

"Stop fidgeting," Adrian says, though his back is to me.

I flatten my fingers, and take a breath. "As you say, sir."

"Do I look like I'm in the military?"

"It would depend on the branch." One more thing I shouldn't have said, and I do hate playing no-win games. Even if I don't care about winning them. Rather than give an explanation, I face down his latest glare--he has a whole variety pack of those, and doesn't seem likely to run out any time soon--and try, "No, of course not." That isn't helping. "Sorry."

I can spent about forty seconds sitting very still while he glares at me before I'm near desperation in wanting to bolt from this chair. Holing up in a surveillance position is one thing; there's an expected end point, and something to watch for. I can't just _sit_ here while he glares at me and do nothing. But I can stare right back at him and wait for him to get past whatever has him acting like such an asshole today.

Today, this year, this decade... Well, I'm pretty sure on the last one by now. The people in the company who are a little bit broken came that way, or reached that point after a lot of repairs. (I wonder how many Lanthano's been responsible for repairing himself.) The ones who are a lot broken all broke ten years ago, when the other Marquis died.

Adrian can't be as thoroughly off model as Valentin, or they wouldn't let him run around like this.

"You're on your third Word," he says. "Why are you wasting your time on details from the first?"

Because I like it. Because it's not _wasting_ my time when he hasn't given me any real work. Because I can't get back to the Marches, so this is the nearest I'll get to being able to make anything interesting. "I was bored," I say.

"Try to occupy yourself with something useful," he says. "Boredom only means you don't have enough work to do."

"I've _noticed_."

I'm really not very good at this respect for unreasonable authority thing. Zabina is so going to flunk me on this one.

"If Zabina can't even find you make-work," he says, "it's no wonder you're wandering into rooms alone with Valentin. Or was that sheer stupidity?"

It occurs to me that I should be careful not to discuss my former partner anywhere in Adrian's presence. If he's looking for ways to upset me, that's a line of conversation that's likely to work. This one...is not. Exactly. Not so long as we're framing it this way. "Sheer stupidity," I say.

"Did you even learn anything from the experience?" He wants to be arch. He's clearly furious, and I'm not even sure why. A good brisk argument could probably reveal that, but I've lost so many points on this assignment already, I can't afford to prompt one. Even if I think it'd be a relief to get it _done_ with.

Besides, that would let him win. That's one thing I learned from Regan: it's possible to block the other person from winning, even if you can't win the game yourself, if you play it right.

"Sure. I learned that walking into rooms with coworkers I don't know or trust is a bad plan. I'm keeping that in mind for the next time I have a choice in the matter."

Adrian's expression flattens further. "Do you think I have as little control as Yuliang?"

"No," I say. "I trust her self-control. Yours is theoretical, and I will take it on faith, having been informed by those above me that I should."

"I don't care if you trust me or not," he snaps, "so long as you do as you're told."

I spread my hands, silent. Maybe this is where I get make-work. Or maybe not. He's spent this whole conversation, odd as it is, standing almost all the way across the room from me. Almost as if there's a good reason why we should maintain a safe distance from each other.

He's doing some of that counting in his head, again. Or whatever Shedim do when they've decided there's some line they won't cross in the midst of angry conversations.

"Did Zabina give you any homework?"

"Some."

"Then do it," he says. "The flight's delayed eight hours, and Yuliang seems unlikely to let you do anything so useful as homework while you're visiting."

That seems to be permission to move again. I grab my books from the bag I brought, and retreat to the table. He's keeping a full meter away from me at all times; in some ways, it's more unsettling than if he wanted to loom and threaten. Explicit threats I can deal with; implied, unspecified ones are more of a problem.

"Stay here," he says, "and do your homework. Are you capable of that?"

"Yes."

He still doesn't believe me. Or maybe he just likes implying that he doesn't believe anything I say, to make me second-guess myself.

"Sit," he says. " _Stay_." And he leaves the room, and me to my books, like there's someone he'd like to murder just down the hall.

None of my business if there is. But I'm not going to do a very good job of concentrating on Dumas just now.


	42. In Which We Discuss The Failure State Of Success

Turns out Adrian's a better person to sit next to on a flight than his host was. He spends the flight in stony silence; I spend it staring out the window at clouds, and working very slowly through Dumas. Reading in French is frustrating for how much slower it is than in English, but there's an odd utility to it. I'm getting more depth out of the reading when I have to think about most words as I read them, one by one, instead of breezing right through. Doubly so when I have to look them them up.

Maybe I should try _Candide_ next after all, as Zabina's been hinting. The trick will be convincing Ash this will be any fun. I'm not sure it's exactly an action-packed adventure.

Our delayed flight gets in on time, for its new values of on time, and Adrian hauls us both out of the plane and terminal in record time. The language shift around me is unsettling, more than anything else. I can read many useful words on the signs, even aside from helpful multilingual translations, but I can't pick out what anyone is saying around me. It might be easier if they were talking to me. Maybe not. A lot of the people here aren't speaking Mandarin, even aside from my difficulty with it in auditory form.

Adrian doesn't slow down any to let me keep up. It's a good thing I'm used to walking in the wake of someone in a much taller vessel. (Host. There's a difference, but it's not important right now.) We breeze right through customs on the way out, so easily that I'd assume he was Charming them if he weren't a Shedite. Presumably he's just that good at finessing us through, or they're not particularly concerned with hassling the small, bedraggled girlfriend of a returning citizen.

It would've been nice to use the shower in that hotel room. But Adrian said to _stay_ , and if he ever thought to rescind that order, it wasn't before we had to leave for the flight.

As soon as we pass customs, there's Baolan waiting for us. Hands stuffed in his pockets, looking exceedingly arch and blue collar today. He lifts a casual wave our way.

We are, on gathering, an odd trio. Yuppie and factory worker and unshowered foreigner, with Baolan the only one looking particularly pleased at the meeting--and that in his own wry way, which isn't the same as actual pleasure. It's much more like amusement. 

I suspect he'd do just fine in Dark Humor, if he were so inclined.

Adrian says something impolite, Baolan responds, and I stare at an informative sign about not leaving bags unattended while they have their obligatory argument. They're talking far too fast for me to catch more than a few words. Yuliang features repeatedly; Guo gets a passing mention. A few angry hand gestures from Adrian seem to indicate me, though if I'm getting any references by name, I haven't caught them.

When Adrian stalks away, I look to Baolan.

"Welcome back," he says. "Did you bring any luggage?"

I hold up my one bag of books. "No, though I'm regretting it now."

"You can shower at Yuliang's place." He actually waits for me to fall in at his side before heading off towards short-term parking. "How was the flight?"

"You know, I'm still not sure if it got better or worse when Adrian caught up." All Impudites of Theft can move through crowds without so much as bumping elbows, and I end up taking a step back to follow Baolan instead of walking beside him. I can't part the way in a vessel like this, unless I want to start punching people.

"Given that pet? I'd vote for better." He flicks a thin smile back at me over his shoulder. "Stick close. It's easy to get lost around here."

I take that as a sign to shut up about company gossip in public, and do so.

We don't pick up any more conversation until we're in the car, air conditioning on and parking lot exited. "How much did you catch of what he was saying?" Baolan asks in Helltongue, navigating his way into the thrill of morning rush hour right beside the airport.

"Very little, but I can guess."

"Really."

I scrub a hand over my eyes, and long for water. "Let's see. Something insulting about Yuliang not picking me up herself, wandering into aspersions cast towards her character, dedication to duty, and sexual habits. Bouncing off that into questioning your commitment to duty compared to pleasure, a little of the same, asking if you're taking orders from her now, criticism of Guo for not being the one to show up and how that only goes to show how poorly he's been trained... How close am I?"

"If you could imitate voices and do funny faces, I'd suggest you run through the list again in front of Yuliang. It's pretty close to right." At a stop, Baolan shifts how he's sitting in the seat, and rolls his shoulders. Slides over to pure neutral, and I cannot stop being impressed by that trick. "Was he all that dreadful?" they ask me.

"Not dreadful." I didn't much like that hotel room, but it had nothing to do with Adrian. "It's easier to deal with him when I remember he can't be pleased, so there's no point in trying."

"Much," Baolan says, "but don't phrase it that way around Zabina."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Yuliang's at work?"

Baolan waves off the question, which means _yes_ and _don't ask_. Fair enough. "Adrian's problem," they say, eyes on the road and, I am quite sure, not all their attention pointed in that same direction, "is that they cracked, just like everyone else, and refuse to admit it. A little fucking self-awareness would go a long ways with that boy. But no, he has to pretend he's above it all, and the only one telling the cold hard truth about the failings in his coworkers."

"People who like to tell everyone the unpleasant truth generally can't handle it when that's turned back on them," I say. "Remind me not to do that around him. I'd probably get one of those looks from Zabina afterward."

"At least he's still functional," Baolan says. "An asshole, but functional."

Unlike Valentin, who gets a dedicated babysitter (though not dedicated enough to keep an eye on them in the office, it would seem) and otherwise no real duties. If that's what broken looks like, no wonder Adrian would rather pretend he's never been so much as scratched. "Really, he stands out for _not_ being the norm in the company. I keep being surprised that other coworkers aren't aggressively terrible, even when they're not trying to get something."

"Everyone's always trying to get something," Baolan says, a little distracted as they cut off a bus and lay on the horn. "Don't believe otherwise. You ran into trouble with Valentin, didn't you?"

Gossip moves faster than inter-office memos around here. Though I suppose it's been nearly two weeks, which is more than enough time for anyone who cares to find out. "Nothing important."

"Valentin is what happens when one of the nice people in the company stops being able to think about consequences and desires more than fifteen minutes away." They reach out to nudge me in the shoulder with a fist. "Remember that, when everyone's being friendly to the new coworker. Especially the Impudites. Everyone underestimates us, and that's fine when it's outsiders doing it, but you should be aware."

Says the Impudite. "What are you trying to get out of telling me this? It's not exactly news." If there's any pure constant in the chaos of Hell, it's that everyone is looking out for themselves first of all.

"I'd like you to last," Baolan says. "If nothing else, to upset that fucking Djinn."

The best thing about someone else doing the driving is that I don't feel like I should be able to look to my right and see him there. In my own car, I've been driving very conscientiously, every trip through the city and back or further, because if I start driving fast, I'm going to wonder why the car's so empty and what he's up to.

"Someone should," I say, for the sake of filling in conversation. Agreeing with people is usually safe. (And, in the case of Adrian, really useful for driving him up the wall. Not that I've been trying to do that. Much.) "I'll see if I can hold out for a few years before my hilarious yet inevitable end."

"See. That right there?" Baolan takes a hard right that makes me glad of my seat belt. "That's exactly the kind of nonsense that did Henry in. No wonder that Djinn picked you out next."

"What, realistic fatalism?"

Baolan snorts, a more feminine sound than the rest of how they're speaking right now. "No. That thing where you're afraid of failure."

I do take a moment to try to connect the dots, but what they mean isn't lining up for me. And I'm pretty sure they're being deliberately cryptic to prompt a question. Since I find them more agreeable than some people I met, and they did pick me up rather than making me flounder through a city I barely know to Yuliang's place alone, I'm willing to play along. "Who isn't? No one likes failure, and in most lines of work it's not a great route to personal survival."

"No one likes failure," Baolan says, "but most people know when to cut their losses and admit something isn't going to work. Some people? They're like Henry. He never met a failure he was willing to accept, and so he'd push harder. Stack up some crazy plan, brazen his way through, and the worst part was, he was smart enough to make it work. Often enough that he started thinking he couldn't fail." They lay an arm over the steering wheel as we're paused at a light, and look over to me directly. "Sound familiar?"

"I used to think I could pull off anything. Then I dropped a building on my own head. It tends to give a guy some perspective."

"Not enough," Baolan says, "or Zhune wouldn't have picked you, would he?"

"It was more like an assignment, actually."

"I can assure you," Baolan says dryly, "that Djinn's more than capable of divesting himself of any companion he _doesn't_ want to keep. He picked you. Because he likes the ones who will keep building schemes up higher and higher, rather than accept any sort of failure. Especially the ones smart enough to pull it off for a while. Then one day personal limitation and opposition and chance all line up exactly the wrong way. What do you think happens then?"

"You drop a building on your own head," I say, "and your life falls apart. Honestly, I _did_ run into that before I ever met him."

"Just try to tell me that you never pushed far past the _reasonable_ point, after that," Baolan says. "To prove to yourself that you were still winning. Not once?"

Aside from that time when I set up to blackmail the War via Judgment to get back at them, and the thing with the other building that fell on me, and that whole incident with Anthony, and oh I _wish_ Baolan did not have a point, here.

"I'll see about toning things down around here," I say. "Seeing as the company isn't big on excitement."

"Not the type that comes as a surprise." Baolan favors me with a smile at last, shot sideways while they focus on the road. "Unlearning some bad habits is par for the course. 'Around here.' You're not the first or last, and if you ask at the right time, you can get some entertaining stories about those."

I shift around in my seat to face them better. "What about yours? Surely you've always been a level-headed employee."

Baolan actually laughs. "I won't tell you any of the good stories. Ask someone else. I will admit that I used to have...problems with authority, let's say. It's also bad for career advancement to get into political arguments with supervisors."

"Left your previous job in a bit of a hurry?"

"Went Renegade," Baolan says, and shrugs it off, like it's not the most terrifying and soul-scarring thing a demon can do, even aside from the sudden increase in risk of death. "So, yes. It turns out that I have fewer problems with authority when they're not short-sighted and blatantly uninterested in the well-being of those beneath them. Go figure."

"So why aren't authority figures like that winning? Given that they end up with employees more inclined to do what they say."

"Damned if I know," Baolan says. "Numbers, I guess. There's a lot more of the other sort out there."

"Figures." I can identify Yuliang's building from two blocks away; even in the midst of others of its type, it stands out once you've been there. We're not close enough, or on the right side, for me to count floors to find her windows. "What Word did you run from, anyway?"

"Theft."

If I'd had to guess a Word, I would've thought Fate. Or maybe even the War; Impudites of the War are all a bit strange. "That must've made for an awkward return."

"You have no idea." Baolan shrugs, and I think that's the point at which I should stop asking nosy questions about the details. "Should I drop you off, or keep you company until Yuliang arrives?"

"I wouldn't mind the company, if you don't mind sitting around the apartment. I didn't think to pack a parcheesi board."

"Not a lot of sitting planned," Baolan says. "You turn red any time someone so much as suggests they'd like to pull your clothes off and get their mouth set on your--see, you're doing it right now. Jump out here at the curb, and I'll catch up once I've parked."

I follow instructions, because I'd rather not say anything just now. Next time I get a chance to ask for a vessel, if I ever do at all, I want one with darker skin. Blushing is so...girly. Even if I do it in both vessels.

Well. At least it keeps my coworkers amused, and doesn't cause any damage.


	43. An Interlude, In Which Yuliang Has Strong Opinions On Interior Decoration

The best part about the elevator ride was switching over from thinking about work to thinking about her own life. Yuliang could stand in a quiet room for a moment, watch herself in the mirror, and shift from who she'd chosen to project at the current mark (who barely needed projection) to herself. That was one of many reasons to live on a high floor of a tall building, and if _some_ people didn't understand why the location was worth the investment, well, that was their problem.

And never mind that. Never mind dubious coworkers or ignorant businessmen, bad traffic and slow sales clerks and anything else that might annoy her in a given day. She had a friend waiting in her apartment, and then a new coworker who was taking his own sweet time working towards friendship right there alongside, and between the two... Three was the best number for any social outing. Proven fact. Or social staying at home, as the case might be.

She answered a few texts from friends--the human kind, who she counted differently--on her way down the hall, decided a few others weren't worth answering just yet (because a fast response could give some people the wrong impression), and was pleased to find the door to her apartment unlocked. There was no better way to know the right people had arrived properly, and hadn't left yet.

"About time you got here," Baolan said, from where she stood in the middle of the room, bare only from the waist up, and that was a little surprise, given how bad traffic had been. "What took you so long?"

"I still think this should go in the blue pile," said Leo, who was wearing exactly as much. "Hello, Yuliang." And his pronunciation was improving, too.

Except. Her apartment had been...ravaged. Mutilated. _Sorted_. All her clothes, acquired from so many places, Baolan never appreciated the work it took, had been pulled apart into heaps. Every bit of her organizational system, all the fun of checking behind the bed or next to the couch for something she'd almost forgotten, had been ripped apart into some sort of filing system. Worse yet, it wasn't even anything practical, like material or garment type or what sort of place a person would wear it to, but by color. Untidy heaps of any old thing, so long as it was the right shade, stood on the floor of the apartment. In _rows_.

"It's _teal_ , Lee," Yuliang said. "Could. Someone just explain? What's going on here?"

The pair of them exchanged glances, like they were outright conspiring. Naturally. Leave two people alone for too long, and conspiracies would just spring up, like weeds between the cracks in pavement. Doubly so for demons. Triply so for clever demons, and aside from the tiniest new employees who needed extra help, the company never hired anyone who wasn't clever.

When she thought about it that way, it made perfect sense. She should've been expecting this. Not _this_ this, but...this kind of thing.

"I got tired of the mess," Baolan said, completely unrepentant. She strode between the stacks (were those in _rows_?) and offered Yuliang a kiss that wasn't an apology at all. "Then I convinced Leo that as long as we were here, we should be helpful."

"That's about how it went," Leo said, and tossed the shirt he was holding into the pile of blue while Baolan's back was turned. (Though really, if one looked at the piles that way, the other Impudite was right with their presumed argument. It should've gone in the green pile.) "I was seduced to the organizational side of the--ah. Anyway." He folded his arms across his tiny breasts, as if he was self-conscious about the toplessness, having been reminded of it. "I suppose if it really bothers you, we could try to shuffle everything back around again..."

"Don't you dare touch it," Yuliang said, and dragged fingers (only the pads, no nails pointed in at all) down Baolan's lovely straight spine. No one else could do casually defiant posture like Baolan. "You're corrupting the innocent again. I just can't leave you with _anyone_ , Bao, can I?"

"Does that include Guo?" Leo asked. "I'm not sure how you corrupt a Shedite, though if any one of them _could_ be corrupted, it's probably that kid." He sat down in a corner of the couch, knees up to her chest ever so casually. And maybe it really _was_ just habit, not defensive, but it meant time to leave her fellow Impudite standing there in the center of the floor, looking so arch about everything, and sit down next to the Calabite instead. Who could be fussy, yes, and nervous about the oddest things, but that was the kind of thing you expected with new employees. Flinching and snarling, or both in different circumstances, until they'd settled down and bonded properly. Not quite six months? That wasn't long enough for the glue to dry.

Yuliang slipped an arm around Leo's shoulders, nothing too intimate yet. Just enough touch to establish that they were there together and everything was fine. "She _does_. You should hear her going on about the glory days of the revolution, as if she didn't lose two Roles and nearly a vessel to that nonsense."

"It was a good idea," Baolan said, and came over to sit on the arm of the couch, to the other side of Leo. Exactly as it should be. "There were some problems with the execution."

"And the executions?"

"They wouldn't call it the War of Liberation if people didn't die," Baolan said dryly. "Thus the 'war' part of the title."

"I was talking about the cultural--wait a minute." Yuliang poked Baolan with the arm slung around Leo's shoulder. "You're trying to distract me into political debate, and it's not going to work. Lee, how was the flight?"

"Moderately horrible," Leo said, and went so far as to lean against her. Nothing big and dramatic, just a relaxation and nearly imperceptible tilt that way. "Does Adrian pick out his hosts by finding the most pretentious tools available?"

"Yes," Baolan said.

"Pretty much," Yuliang said. "I think it's because that way he doesn't feel bad about corrupting them. They're usually pretty, and none of them are worth taking to bed unless someone else is in their head. Except not even that lately, since Adrian's been such an asshole."

"He'll get over it," Baolan said. That was one of the long-running company arguments, if only because it was standing in the place for _When are we going to get over this?_ and most of the company answering _Never_. As well they should. But that wasn't the sort of thing to drag Leo into in the middle of a vacation.

So she said to Leo, "See, you're doing just fine with fitting in around here. Talking about coworkers who aren't in the room is the second most popular way to make and maintain friendships in the company."

"Given we're all part of Theft," he said, "shouldn't the most popular way involve joint heists? Or cash?"

And now Baolan leaned in, though she laid her arm over the back of the couch. The newest and most nervous one all contained between them, but not locked down. No one liked being locked down with no room to bolt except in the most particular circumstances with the most trusted people. "Too much like work," she said. "And those of us who _started_ in Theft know how often partners in crime can turn on you. That's great for a lark, but it's no way to build trust."

"Sex doesn't seem to do much for creating lasting bonds when Lust does it," Leo said, his head almost against Yuliang's shoulder, and he wasn't shying away at all from where Baolan's arm lay so close, his pretty red hair brushing against it. (She could do _so much_ with his hair if he'd grow it out a bit farther, but she didn't expect that to happen until he got over a lot of other things that were more important on their own.) "So what's it good for here, besides the fun?"

"Lust has to make rules about it," Yuliang says, "to keep it all body and mind and nothing more interesting." It was almost the sort of question that made her wonder if she should _not_ touch, just while answering it, but if Leo wasn't going to flinch she wasn't about to let go. And she could play with the hair on the back of his neck, her fingers brushing against Baolan's arm, and let it be all three of them in it together, skin to skin. "We have to keep moving, every three days, because Theft knows there's a danger of just taking and taking and taking and _staying_ , when it's dangerous. Lust knows that if they don't make rules about it, people have sex and then sometimes they get all attached. But they don't get all of sex, any more than every bit of stealing is ours, or every bit of murder is Death's."

"Though we try to avoid murder," Baolan said, which was entirely a digression from the point Yuliang was trying to make.

"We do. More a Shedite thing, and we don't ask. So. Lust gets sex? So what? They don't get all of it. No one gets _all_ of anything, and it's part of our job to make sure that's so."

"Redistribution of wealth," Baolan said, and smirked when Yuliang jabbed her in the side. "Redistribution of sex? I suppose I support that too, as it's all for the cause. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need..."

"I found you both standing around here with half your clothing still on," Yuliang said. "Clearly there are some needs not being addressed by local abilities."

"Didn't want to get ahead of you," Baolan said, and that still wasn't an apology. Yuliang wasn't sure Baolan knew how to apologize at all. "And it's a good thing, isn't it? You were late enough that we could have been through and done with if we were hurrying, and still had time to start sorting your clothing."

"Now I'm here," Yuliang said, "so--wait, if you _weren't_ doing anything, where did the shirts go? I'm not _complaining_ , but maybe someone could walk me through the sequence of events?" That was an opening for Leo, right there, if he was feeling left out of the conversation. He wasn't very assertive, and Zabina really should've been doing something about that, but trust that Lilim to want someone meek and subordinate beneath her. (Leo _wasn't_ , exactly, but he could come across that way sometimes, and it would be just like Zabina to press for more of that.) She nudged Leo's leg with hers, and was rewarded by one knee being lowered. That she could twine hers around, and the Calabite was a little less closed-in, which was good. It wasn't just about what the body language meant: emotion followed what the body was showing, as much as the reverse.

"I was giving lessons in foreplay," Baolan said, all self-amused.

"In segments," Leo murmured.

"Like I said. I didn't want to get ahead of you. Five minutes demonstration, ten minutes sorting. We got through two thirds of the flat, and I figured that if we cleared the bed as well before you got back, we'd move on from there."

"I came in the wrong ten minute slot," Yuliang said. "I blame traffic." She spun around, slipped a leg between Leo's drawn-in knee and chest, and got herself seated in the Calabite's lap, facing him, and maybe a little uncomfortably packed into the corner of the couch. "The clock's turned off, and this is officially no longer Fuck With Yuliang's Clothing Time. The ending credits have rolled! The show has been _cancelled_. We're moving on to the Sexy Fun Time Hour."

"Don't go all Media on us," Baolan said. "That's Artem's job." She planted a hand between Leo's shoulder blades, and pushed. _Not_ hard enough to topple him off the couch with her on his lap, which would've been fun, but probably a bad idea with someone who still got all combat twitchy when startled. "This side of the couch is not big enough for three people."

"No, it's not." Yuliang slid to her feet, dropping hands to Leo's wrists and tugging him up to follow. "But since you've assembled these _convenient_ heaps of clothing, we've got more options."

"There's always the bed," Leo said.

"Nope. No bed. You made this monstrosity, that's what we're working with." Yuliang pointed to the pile of blue, which would work best against Leo's current vessel. "We can work our way back up to the bed."

"I sort of prefer red," Leo said blandly.

"Just accept the blue pile," Baolan said. "Or maybe the green, since there seems to be some disagreement about the dividing line--" She stopped short as Yuliang stalked past her and swiped the teal shirt. Which _entirely_ belonged in the green pile. "Or we could stick to blue."

"And stay away from yellow," Yuliang said to Leo, because that was just good advice in general. "At least in that vessel." She set her hands on the Calabite's hips. "Seriously, all this time before I got home, and you were just _sorting_ things? The day's getting away, and we're going to spend it on much more useful things."

"Useful things," Leo said, as if he wasn't quite convinced.

Yuliang pushed him down onto the blue pile, which was entirely the right color choice. She was usually right about these things. "Company bonding," she said. "Bao, sweetie, give me a hand."


	44. In Which I Pay Attention To What People Aren't Saying

"Lee," Yuliang says, from somewhere down at the foot of the bed, "do you want to go on a trip?"

I snap the booklight off--it's almost out of battery--and roll over to try to locate her actual presence. She's a shadow just past the bed, framed dimly in the light from the rest of the apartment; said light is currently supplied only by the enormous window. A good thing that the city's so well lit, then, even at this hour, or I wouldn't be able to see a thing. "Does this involve buying more clothes?"

"Maybe," Yuliang says. "But that's _always_ an option, and it's not about that. We should stop by Chaixin's office and say hi. Since you're here, and all."

She's entirely pleased with this idea. I'm glad it's too dark for her to see any expression on me. "I thought her office was in Beijing."

"The main one, sure, but Theft _travels_ , so she has a few. She'll be here for the morning to handle a few things. We should stop by."

"I'm sure she's busy, Yuliang."

She corrects my pronunciation absently, and continues without any sign of being thus distracted, "She's not so busy we can't say _hello_. It's a good idea to check in regularly. Just...keeping up connections, right?" The mattress tilts under the new weight, and then I have a shadow at my side, a hand drawing circles on my shoulder. "It's a basic social principle. You can't get to know people, or form relationships with them, if you never spend any time together."

"I can't imagine the Marquis would be much fonder of me for being interrupted at work." And if I can't come up with something thoroughly distracting, that's exactly what'll happen. Yuliang doesn't leave off an idea easily once she's settled on it.

"I've got work reasons to be there," Yuliang says breezily, as if she was prepared for exactly this line of argument. "And it would be silly for you to _not_ come along, since, to start with, you're an employee and not a contractor, and second, it's nothing ultra sensitive, so think of what it would look like if you sat back here, and I had to come back and get you afterward, when you could just come along."

"It would look," I say dryly, "as if I were avoiding my own boss. We can't have that." I tuck the bookmark in place and push the book away (though I'm not sure I'll be able to find it again if I don't retrieve it before the next shuffle of clothing) as I doubt I'm getting more reading done in the near future. "If it's important for me to show the flag, I'll come along, but I don't expect to make much of an impression if I'm reporting in during a vacation."

Yuliang slides up next to me, her knee pressing against my arm as she arranges herself against the wall. So I sit up, rather than remain at eye level to her legs. (Though I can't see anything useful here anyway.) Shoulder-to-shoulder feels like a better place for a conversation. "It looks," she says, "like you're afraid of her."

I could dismiss that if she were breezy about it. Simple enough to redirect what's halfway to teasing, and move on. But she's working with _gentle_ , like I might spook, and...no, I don't think I can laugh that one off.

"I suppose it does," I say. "I haven't really worked for many people who wanted to...chat. Or gotten the impression that she wanted to, either."

The darkness does nothing to confuse me about the sound of a cork being popped from a bottle. "She's not chatty," Yuliang says, pressing the bottle into my hand; it's too wide around to be what I'd expect for wine, and too large for beer, which means it's probably something harder than either. "But that doesn't mean she wants us to stay away. Not everyone's very extroverted, right? Which is one reason why she hires so many Impudites. We handle that sort of thing."

I take a swig from the bottle, and nearly choke. Stronger than beer by _far_. This is nearer to vodka. "And you're handling it nicely, but what _is_ this?"

"Baijiu. Never had any?"

"I think I would've remembered."

"So you're having an authentic cultural experience," Yuliang says, back to a comfortable smugness. She takes the bottle out of my hand. "She's not going to hurt you, Lee. I know it's hard to believe when you got fucked over by so many other people, but this time around, you are really and truly safe."

There is no such thing. There is no such thing even at the side of a Djinn attuned to you, who can't ever hurt you, and is quick to remind you of this. "I suppose so."

She hands me the bottle back, and I have a much more cautious swig. Just for the cultural experience. "Why _would_ she? You're one of her employees, and you've never seen or heard of her harming any one of us, have you? And you know how people talk. Even if people were afraid to talk about that directly, you'd have noticed and figured it out by them talking around it. So you know it's not so."

I could refuse to give her an argument, the way I do with Adrian. But I'd rather not annoy her--that's not _why_ I do it to Adrian, but it's a perk--and it's not as if it would help. Djinn have nothing on Yuliang for relentless dedication to a concept. "There's an awful lot of distance between physical damage and 'perfectly safe', you know."

"There is," Yuliang says. "If you make some massive, catastrophic mistake? She'll expect you to fix it, and won't give you an opportunity to make another like that until you've proven that you learned better. But she's not going to bite if you walk in and say hello."

I have another swig of what I'm drinking, which I would probably appreciate the nuances of if I were paying any attention to it, and pass the bottle her way. "I don't have a damn thing to show her. I can't even speak Mandarin competently yet, and I've been trying."

"That's not _your_ fault," Yuliang says quickly. "That's a matter of the focus you're getting in teaching. Besides, you don't need to impress the Marquis first thing. You impressed her time and again already! Now you're learning company basics, not being given things to do." She pauses while she has a sip. "In all honesty, Leo, what do you think is the worst that could happen?"

I'm not sure I want to answer that question in _all_ honesty. Fortunately, there's not a lot of ways for her to tell partial truth from the entire version. "She could regret hiring me."

"She won't," Yuliang says. She has perfect confidence in so many things. I have none, though I can fake it in certain situations. (In front of seven-Force Magpies new to the corporeal, for example, and that's not going to impress anyone else.) She kisses me behind my ear. "Even if you mess up, and you _haven't_ , she doesn't go back on those decisions. Not ever. She even keeps--" There's a hitch there, and I am almost certain she has decided that the right example there should not be Valentin. "--Itimad, and no one outside the company would blame her at all for not."

"I don't know who that is," I say. That makes them an odd silence, because I've heard the name of everyone else. Or I think I've heard the name of everyone else, in Guo's list. Everyone he knew, even by reputation, inside the company. Over the course of a few years, I'd have thought he'd have run into every other employee.

"You probably won't ever meet her," Yuliang says. She needs another drink to talk about this. That makes me feel better, which it shouldn't, but there you have it. "She's a Lilim. We only have the three. Wren, Zee, and Itty. I mean. Itimad. She fell apart, and...I don't think she's ever going to get better, Lee. Someone has to carry her out to keep her from getting dissonant, every three days." She's silent for a moment, breathing steadily beside me. And then says in a sudden rush that's near to anger, "It would be easier if she were in Trauma. Because then you could say, oh, when she wakes up, she'll be fine again. But she's not. She just doesn't want to deal with the world, ever again, and no one knows any way to make her without it--just breaking whatever's left of her, even worse. So no one _will_."

No one will bring in a Habbalite or a Balseraph to push her past whatever's caught in her head. No one will sell her off to another Word, and I can't imagine the Boss would object (so long as he got his cut), with what Lilim are worth compared to the more common Bands, and with how little good she's doing him.

I wonder if the Marquis has even told him about that Lilim. It's not as if he needs his own Servitor's permission to take away something she's not using and making a profit off it. It's not even _theft_ when whatever we own is on his sufferance.

"Why not?" I say at last, and get the bottle back for my question.

"Adrian," Yuliang says, scorn coloring her voice, "claims that the Marquis only keeps certain people around for morale purposes. Because we'd all be nervous if she did otherwise. I say she does it because she cares about this company the way we do. Once you learn to see the rest of the company as a sort of...rest of yourself, it _works_ better, in both directions. The company belongs to Chaixin the way we own our vessels, and she's not going to get rid of pieces any more than we'd chop off a hand because of a broken finger."

"Possessions," I say.

"Employees," Yuliang retorts.

Maybe when the Marquis says _employee_ there's a weight to it like when Zhune says _partner_. But even Zhune, with the attunement of a Djinn locked around someone's soul, gave up on partners.

Maybe the Marquis just hasn't been around long enough to decide an employee is worth cutting loose, despite what Adrian says. (And he makes a good point. He wouldn't be half so annoying if he couldn't make some of his remarks hit home.) Either way, I'm unlikely to be the first.

If nothing else, Guo's continued presence proves that the Marquis has quite the patience with mediocre results.

"I need to be sober before we get there," I say.

"We won't finish the bottle. And dressed decently--"

"I figured that went without saying."

"Entirely." Yuliang's next kiss is to my clavicle, and she's sliding in between my legs again, glass resting chill against my knee as she braces it there. "How do you feel about blue?"

"At least it's easy to find."

#

In the sticky morning heat, I am less sanguine about what I've agreed to. Yuliang made a valiant effort to talk me into a backless sundress, of all things, and I held out against _that_ , but she's still managed to stuff me into something I find vaguely uncomfortable. (She would probably claim I feel uncomfortable in anything that looks like a woman might wear it, and she'd be right. I realize it's arbitrary human-created distinctions that vary by culture. And yet.) Skinnier jeans than I'd like, a green silk shirt she claims is blue--I suspect it's the same one Baolan and I were arguing about yesterday--and sunglasses, which maybe make it look like I'm covering up a hangover, though I'm not.

She's deployed hats at both of us; I'm mildly relieved to find they don't match. "The only good thing about summer," she says, "is hats. Beyond that it's all heat and fewer clothing options that are comfortable at all. I don't know why we bother with it at all."

I find that I can't stuff my hands in my pockets, because these damn jeans have no pockets worth speaking of. "Axial tilt?"

Yuliang considers this, studying the sky critically. "Well," she concludes, "someone should do something about it." And then she's distracted in getting our cab to pick us up at the spot she's settled on, so I can't tell to what degree she's joking.

Once we're in the cab she has some dozen text conversations to catch up on, so I stare out the window and try to think about architecture. It's a more useful line of thought than traffic patterns, because despite my occasional best intentions, I haven't gotten around to doing more than the most cursory review of that topic. Zabina's not about to assign it, and it's just not relevant to anything I might possibly do for the company. Knowing where and when the traffic is bad in a given city might be useful; analyzing the reasons for it and how to change it in the long term, not so much. This is not college. I do not get to take classes for the sake of my own entertainment.

In retrospect, it's amazing how much I got past my supervisor back then. She was too busy using me as an emotional chew toy to pay attention to anything about my academics besides grades and progress toward the assigned degree.

She wasn't paying attention because it wasn't within her areas of interest. It's amazing what can pass you by that way. And I'm settling into this odd place (which I suppose is technically less odd than my circumstances while Renegade) enough that I'm starting to pay attention to things that aren't exactly my areas of interest, but _should_ be.

Like figuring out what the company really does.

It's not Word support. It can't be. Industrial Espionage is a respectable Word, but a little constrained for a Marquis. You don't need two dozen demons, plus contractors and interns and whatever human minions the demons keep. (I don't know how many of those are actually Hellsworn, but it's still a workforce.) Doubly so if you're not even trying to do global coverage. Lanthano does jobs in South America, various employees have dropped into North America every few years, but the numbers just don't work out.

So what else does a Marquis do with that many people? She maintains her position against the plots of other distinction-stamped demons of Hell, Wordmate or allied or otherwise. That seems to be Captain Dio's full-time job; I know Lanthano does some courier work in Stygia on related details; call a handful of other employees focused on that. Still leaves an awful lot of demons stationed on the corporeal, all with solid Roles (or Shedim), for...what? Generic Theft support? I'm not sure Lanthano even shoplifts except for good reason. Yuliang does, but she spends more time _paying_ for her clothing habit. And most of these coworkers of mine aren't holding down the sorts of jobs where there's a lot of scope for direct white collar crime.

Inspiring white collar crime, maybe. If this is a long-term play for White Collar Crime, which I believe is currently held by someone in Greed, then it makes sense to invest in the structure. That's a Word big enough for Valefor to actually care about swiping it, and everything is easier to steal if you have a place to store it ready and waiting as soon as you lay your hands on the thing.

Still not enough. Oh, maybe I'm missing something big and political, but it's not _enough_. You don't build an organization like this on a medium-sized Word, some internal politics, and a chance at a bigger Word. There's a lot going on that no one's telling me about yet.

I don't expect them to explain individual jobs. That kind of thing is always on a need-to-know basis, if only to reduce the chance of accidentally spilling details to a lurking Seraph. (If Heaven had a bit more sense, they'd be sending out flocks of those in bird vessels. No dissonance chance in the talking, just a lot of information collection.) But the overall goals of the company? Yeah, I expected a little more discussion of that by now. Or at least, I feel like it should have been there, now that I'm thinking about it specifically.

They're doing a whole category of things I'm not very aware of.

Either I'm not supposed to know yet, or they're waiting for me to notice.

Or they expect Zabina to fill me in at an appropriate moment, and she's waiting for me to notice, because everything is a test.

Yuliang pats me on the knee. "Do you have any preference on where we go for lunch? Because there's this place we didn't get a chance to try last time that I remembered and you'll like it, they do the most amazing lunch special."

"Sounds good to me," I say.

"And we can work on your Mandarin, while we're there."

She's offering a distraction from my thoughts. I should appreciate that a bit more. "In public? That's just cruel."

"You have to start somewhere, Lee."

We keep up the idle chatter right up to the office building where the Marquis has set up for the morning. It's not the one Yuliang once pointed out to me as a place where Daosheng used to hold rooms. I wonder if a Role was compromised, resources lost... Or if they just don't want the bad memories.

It's so strange, even now, the way people in the company seem to regret losing someone above them. You don't get a lot of that in Hell, except from the deluded types.

Most of my coworkers don't seem deluded.

The building itself is exactly what you'd expect. Corporate through and through, with a shining lobby that exists mostly to make the people renting space upstairs feel good about the amount they're paying for it. We're heading to a floor high enough up that the elevator ride involves a lot of stopping to let other people on and off before we arrive, and make our way to a studiously generic office. It has its own little reception room, where a secretary smiles at our entrance.

I almost follow the exchange between the woman at the desk and Yuliang. Proper business Mandarin, that, which I should have down better after months of study. Reading continues to be easier than hearing it, and my accent remains dreadful. Zabina has not refrained from telling me so.

When the secretary turns her bright gaze on me, I give her a friendly nod right back. "You're getting better at that."

Her shoulders sink. "I thought you couldn't tell this time, Leo. I've been practicing and everything."

"I did say you were getting better, didn't I? And I probably wouldn't have been able to tell at all, without context to give me more hints. Not if you were walking on the other side of the street and I wasn't looking for you in particular, and maybe not even then, if there was a crowd and I didn't have any hints beyond knowing you might be in the area."

Guo nods thoughtfully. "So you're saying that if an enemy's watching for me, I'm probably in the clear?"

"Given enough cover, and barring Songs or resonances or what not that'd give them more clues. Sure. Probably."

"You're not likely to do better than 'probably', Gee," Yuliang says. "Things happen! Even when you've laid your plans out perfectly and learned how to do everything as well as possible."

"One of the comforting things about life," I tell Guo, "is knowing that you _can't_ prepare for every possible way your plans could go wrong, so you might as well only prepare for the likely ones."

"That's not very comforting," Guo says.

"It is when you're on a deadline." It also assumes that you're working with sufficient lack of oversight that you won't be blamed for the lack of preparation when the wildly unexpected happens--like, say, your partner bumps into a Mercurian of War and gets shot twenty-four hours after package delivery and then it turns out the client needs more help from you after all--but that's a lot harder to come by, and more depressing to think about at length.

"Wouldn't it just be easier--" She stops short, eyes flicking to the screen of her computer. It's one of those corporate models, and I think you could apply that adjective to everything in sight other than me, that's designed to look professional and sleek rather than user-friendly or comfortable. "You can go inside as soon as the current appointment is out."

"Then let's hope they hurry up," Yuliang says, and I find I agree with her. Much as I am not a fan of friendly chats with the boss, neither do I want to sit outside that door and wait for it much longer.

But it's not much longer. A moment later a man strides out of the office, briefcase clutched at his side. His eyes slide warily across Yuliang and me, over Guo, back to us, and then set fixedly forward as he marches on and out. He doesn't like that we've seen him; he's quite protective about what's in that briefcase; he's afraid of the whole situation and sure he's being watched. Interesting. Not an employee, that, and probably not an unaware human either.

"You can go in now," Guo chirps unnecessarily. I make sure to give her a friendly smile on the way past. She _is_ getting better about playing the role of the human she's riding, instead of being herself in someone else's body.

Bad enough to be in the wrong body without someone else's mind in there with you. I suppose the company gives her a leg up on faking things properly, as compensation.

I last saw the Marquis less than a month ago, and a few times before that, but there's the small shock on entering her temporary office as I realize that I haven't seen her on the corporeal since Seattle. She's no less dangerous or intimidating, but some of the visceral reaction isn't there when I see her in a vessel instead of her true form.

All three of us look entirely human for the moment. It's a more comfortable set of bodies in which to pretend we can all get along.

The last time I saw _Yuliang_ standing in front of the Marquis, we were reporting on a stupid mistake leading to a potential security breach. Let's just say the atmosphere was a bit tense. Here, Yuliang steps around the desk to meet the Marquis, who's already standing up to greet her, with a kiss that has at least as much sincerity as any I've ever received. "I would've dressed better, but I've been so busy," Yuliang says, switching to Helltongue. "Anything new blow up since I last checked in? It's all been quiet and by the book, on my end."

"No real explosions," says the Marquis. She doesn't linger in that near embrace, but draws a hand along Yuliang's cheek as she moves away. "I've set Baolan to stomping on a few problems, and seconded Guo to them once I move on. Unless you have need?"

"Oh! No, nothing major. I thought I'd take him out to the country soon, show him some of the old-fashioned tricks that everyone seems to be forgetting now that it's so easy to stick to cities month in and out." Yuliang drifts back to my side and makes it look natural. There is nothing unconscious or inadvertent about the movement of an Impudite two centuries old. "If you're done with him before Leo heads back, maybe it'll be a whole outing. Everyone should know how to ride a horse."

"Not so vital as it used to be," says the Marquis, "but still useful." She checks her phone, glances at her computer screen, and still seems unnervingly focused on Yuliang. Or at least I'd be unnerved by that focus. Generally am when it lands on me. "Are your pets in order?"

"Reasonably," Yuliang says, and dives into a rapid discussion of humans I've never met and their varied fortunes. I can't tell how much of this is a business discussion of resources and how much is friendly chit-chat; the two seem to overlap too much to be disentangled. The Marquis doesn't look impatient about being given what seems like gossip to me, and not even gossip related to Hell.

It's not unlike the moment when I realized I could follow most of what Giovanna was saying in French, rather than scattered words and sentence rhythm, when it gets through to me.

The Marquis is _fond_ of Yuliang. She is not particularly interested in the specifics of the gossip; she is interested in Yuliang's satisfaction with that useful social network, and in her presence. The details of this conversation matter exactly as much as the details of any of the long arguments Zhune and I have had over movies we watched or cars we stole.

It's not the same at _all_. The Marquis is no Djinn, and the power differential has another order of magnitude, and...it's not. Never mind that. But damned if she doesn't care for this one of her employees, inasmuch as any one of us demons can manage that sort of thing. Yuliang and I don't know who else; she doesn't talk to Zabina like this, that I've witnessed. Maybe Lanthano. Everyone likes Lanthano.

Yuliang's not deluded. She gets some damn respect from her boss. (Our boss.) And she's had it so long, she can't see why I shouldn't expect to earn the same. Except there's no player's guide for this particular game. I don't even know if it's one I can win, or if there are a limited number of slots there and they've already been filled.

I don't know if it's something I want. Having that kind of look directed at me didn't turn out so well before.

When the Marquis turns her attention on me, it's not the same. (Of course it's not.) "What do you think of Shanghai?" she asks.

It's small talk, of a sort. A bit more focused than _What did you do on your summer vacation_ or _Terrible weather lately, isn't it_. It's the sort of question that accepts a banal response.

"It makes me want to take up city planning," I say. Okay. Not quite banal enough. "Mostly for traffic reasons, though I'd like to import those pedestrian walkways back to the US." Right, let's back away from criticism of the city other people are so attached to. "Great views, though."

"And a much better night life than where you're living," Yuliang says, with a toss of her hair. She slips a hand into mine, with a quick squeeze for comfort. "Is there any way you could stay out the day? We could do a few hours at a club. _One_ hour."

"No," says the Marquis. She is not apologetic; that would be inappropriate. But she brushes a hand across Yuliang's cheek. "Another time." That's not a promise, either.

"Another time," Yuliang echoes, as if it is.

We have almost been dismissed. Before we can go, the Marquis looks me over. There's not much to tidy this time around; even I can only get so bedraggled in a half hour of cab ride and standing quietly in clean, air-conditioned rooms. And yet she straightens the collar of my shirt, brushes off a bit of debris (where do these things come from?), and smoothes my hair back in order.

Yuliang blinks, hard.

Oh. Of course. The Marquis would have a great deal of practice in checking another Calabite's appearance before sending them out into public again. I've never met Daosheng, never will, and I keep tripping over traces of her throughout the company.

It took very little time for Chaixin to set everything about me right in place. She nods to us, a friendlier dismissal than I've received before. And neither of us is presumptuous enough to dawdle.

Guo wiggles her fingers at us as we pass; she's busy on the phone, sitting up very straight with headset in place. I make sure to wave back. Never hurts to stay on the good side of what coworkers have one.

The heat must've climbed ten degrees while we were inside. It hits like a hot towel when we step out of the building, and I suspect I'm rumpled again already. Yuliang slides her arm through mine, and leans in shoulder to shoulder, sticky as it is.

"I have an idea," she says.

"Does it involve buying clothing?"

"Yes. But you'll like this. We'll swing through some new places this afternoon, invite Baolan back over tonight, and dress you up like a boy."

"I dress like a boy anyway," I point out. "It doesn't help."

"No, you just wear the same clothes you would otherwise. Dressing to look like a boy is much more specific. You wouldn't look like a girl if you put on a dress otherwise, would you? I'll buy the right clothes for you, and Baolan will show you how to wear them." She's too pleased with the notion to--no. She hasn't forgotten anything from in the office. She's found a notion to please her, as a way of not thinking about it.

I'm not sure it does me any good to figure these people out. At least it keeps me entertained during the shopping trips.

"Okay."

Yuliang grins at me. "I _told_ you you'd like it."

"Hey, it means an entire shopping trip without you trying to put me in a dress. How could I not?"

"We can't go clubbing like that, though," Yuliang says. "No one would let you in. Not any place worth going."

"I know, I know. I'll end up looking fifteen."

"More like _twelve_. We'll just have Baolan over instead." Yuliang checks her phone with one hand, and keeps her other locked tightly on my arm. "And how do you feel about horseback riding tomorrow?"

"Well. Zabina would approve."

"Sure, but we'll do it anyway."


	45. An Interlude, In Which My Coworkers Argue About Company Culture

Lanthano sat backwards on a chair, chin on his folded arms, and tried to remember the meditation exercises from that one corporate retreat he went on some two or three decades back. He couldn't remember the name of the corporation in question, or why they had insisted on bringing a contractor along on such an exercise. Something about steady breathing, and probably better posture... Well. No matter. Humanity had not yet come up with a way to make certain situations more bearable. Current top of the list: visits from Adrian.

He would give credit where it was due, though. At least the Shedite chose attractive hosts for the visits. Lanthano would have preferred his boyfriend not be the chosen host, but it did reduce the potential for security leaks. The view was good as Adrian stalked back and forth across the room in the middle of the rant of the hour. Apparently everyone in Shanghai was frivolous, easily distracted, and incapable of focusing on work.

After ten years of these accusations, the details didn't particularly matter. Especially when the same basic complaints came up for everyone Adrian dealt with. Coworkers and contractors and Wordmates... Even enemies didn't get much credit for focusing on their opposition. It was easy to tune out until it got personal. 

Based on past experience, "personal" was about ten minutes away.

Adrian nearly stumbled, and glared down at his feet. "Meanwhile, _you_ play house with a lot of unnecessary props. How does any of this help with your work?"

"It's good camouflage," Lanthano said. He tucked a smile behind his arms. "Eun likes you."

The Shedite picked Eun up, and glared. All he got in return was an insistent bump from the cat's head and the beginnings of a purr. "Your cat recognizes this host's smell. Nothing more."

Lanthano made a vague noise of agreement. It wasn't so; Eun preferred Adrian to the human, though the cat would take petting from either. How a cat could tell the difference in what mind had control of the body, he wasn't sure, but what difference did it make? "No expects demons to have house pets," he said.

"Because they're an excellent place for Hives to spy from." Adrian had a very pretty sneer in that body; the human never made those faces. "What would you do if one did take up residence in your cat?"

"The same sorts of things I usually do," Lanthano said, "and it would eventually get bored and go away. It's called a Role, Adrian. Rather like vessels, I don't expect you to understand them, but do realize that they're useful things to own."

"For hiding," Adrian said, sharp and pointed, as if this were something to be ashamed of. Scratch the Shedite, and find Stone underneath. One more or less had to forgive him for it. The Marquises had chosen him knowing full well what he was. "Real work is dangerous."

"And I do it when I'm called on for it. Meanwhile, yes, I have a house and a cat and a boyfriend, and sometimes I take vacations." Lanthano sat back. "Would you like anything other than a place to complain?"

"Still a whore, down to your Heart," Adrian said. He put the cat down on the back of the couch. "You can't help how you were made, can you?"

Lanthano shrugged, and waited for Adrian to sit before kneeling down in front of him. "The job description has always been a bit vague."

"Shut up," Adrian said. "Unless you've forgotten _everything_ useful that you know how to do?"

Three years ago, Lanthano had said to Adrian, _You never used to call me that. What changed?_ The result had been--he recalled his words in the report to Chaixin afterward--an unproductive conversation. Or something slightly less euphemistic.

"I'm sure you'll tell me if I make any mistakes," Lanthano said. (Because Adrian would keep pushing, if people backed away. Until he got a response to prove something to himself. Whatever it was that he was still trying to prove.) He ignored the Shedite's response; it was impolite, but not aimed with enough care to hit anything sensitive.

Besides. He took some pride in his work. He took enjoyment in it, and if Adrian refused to see how that made any difference, so be it. The pleasure was in skill and simplicity both. Skill because what he had learned before he knew his own name was useful, and he would not pretend otherwise. Simplicity because it _was_ simple. Skin against skin, vessel to vessel (or to human or to human as host), nerves and muscles and moisture and cells conspiring together to make even celestials, beings of pure soul, react.

He liked making people react. Best of all when they asked for it. That was exactly what Adrian was doing, in his own _special_ way, sprawled on the couch with legs spread and gaze fixed pointedly at the ceiling, or over Lanthano's head, anywhere but down to where the Shedite might have to acknowledge someone else was involved in the process. Exactly as much of a request as when Leo said _Yes_ and _More_ to questions posed to him.

All Lanthano had to do was get his mouth and hands on Adrian's cock (which belonged more so to the human currently being worn, if humans could really be said to own anything) and the Shedite, roving troubleshooter for the company, confidante of the Marquis, a proper distinction-laden Knight in the Word of Theft, lost all his damn complaints. A few minutes in and the man was made of shivers. No resistance at all.

Lanthano ran him through the usual progression. Rapid breathing, lack of visual focus, some blessed quiet, then half-stifled sounds that were all the more endearing for being so small. There was a certain sincerity to what noises escaped Adrian when he would have preferred to make none at all.

Adrian's hands always went white-knuckled when he came, no matter what host he was in at the time. Something of a tell, that. Lanthano had wondered periodically if there was some equivalent back home on the Shedite's true body. He hadn't wondered enough to go find out. There was nothing appealing about those bodies, even when he was on good terms with the person in possession of one.

Lanthano laid his arms across Adria's knees, and set his chin down there. "You should stop by more often."

"Do you somehow imagine this is necessary?" The scorn was fighting its way back into Adrian's voice, but hadn't solidified yet.

"I think you need to get laid more. If stopping by here is the only time it happens..." Lanthano shrugged.

"As if it's any of your concern."

"I'm not officially in charge of morale for the company, but I'm not officially _not_ in charge either." Lanthano gave up on that position, and sat down on the couch beside the Shedite instead. "I'd do this regardless."

"Because you like _everyone_ ," Adrian said. There was the scorn, as if it had never left.

"I don't much like you anymore," Lanthano said. He scooped Eun up as the cat made a determined scramble towards Adrian's lap. Best not to get claws anywhere in there with those trousers still open. "I do, however, respect you for your work."

"How kind."

"Just practical. No one's disputed you do good work. Not in decades. If all you want is respect, Adrian, you can get that from most of the company. Even now."

"You spend too much time thinking about coworkers," Adrian said, "instead of work. And all the ways they interact. You're not very good at being a demon, did you know that? Halfway to a Mercurian just by getting too attached to the wrong things. If the Game ever makes it past the outer layer of paperwork, do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in?"

"Like facts ever mattered to the Game," Lanthano said. He slipped Adrian's shirt up, and got no resistance in pulling that off the body. (He'd picked it out for his boyfriend personally, and knew exactly what it took to pull it off neatly without any snags along the way.) "Besides, even they could tell I'd make a terrible Mercurian. Short on Essence all the time, and losing a quarter of my play options if a human's involved? Doesn't sound like my style at all."

"Everyone in this company is so terrible at being a fucking demon," Adrian muttered. He closed his eyes for a moment. "One of these days it'll fall apart and none of you will be able to cope. All over again."

Lanthano took advantage of those closed eyes to compose himself before Adrian was looking at him again. "Do you want suggestions for other people to try in the company? Or do you prefer the dramatic sulking?"

"Suggest away. I'd like to hear this one."

"Zabina," Lanthano said. "She already has a servant with a body she likes. She isn't about to take some complaints personally, and maybe you could actually talk business."

Adrian snorted. "And?"

"And that's the list. There's no one else I would recommend."

"Not even the new Destroyer you've been sharing around."

That was a hazardous zone right there, and not one Lanthano had been aware of before. The difficulty of Adrian falling out of casual socialization within the company was that these things took longer to come to his attention than they used to. If the Shedite just screwed a few more coworkers regularly--or talked with them about things other than work and their failings, that would suffice--this would've been obvious...well, whenever it had become an issue. Possibly at the instant Leo had been hired, because the operative word in that sentence had been _Destroyer_.

"What a terrible idea," Lanthano said. "You'll have to stand up if you want me to get the rest of those clothes off neatly."

"What you see in a creature that can't keep its own shirt tucked in for an hour, I don't know," Adrian said, but he stood up. He had the knack for projecting arrogant disdain while someone took his clothes off. "I'm surprised you're not there now, getting Zabina's antique furniture dirty."

The Marquis had not mentioned the _don't interfere_ command she'd given him to Adrian; it was some relief, as Lanthano had no great desire to deal with the sniping on that one. "Work to do, pets to feed." Shoes and socks to remove, one by one, and then he could get Adrian's host properly naked. He had a deep affection for that body, whoever was running it. When working with so many Shedim, it was always best to choose pets that way. The ones who were agreeable as themselves, and still enjoyable when they were someone else.

"You want me to stay away from that child. What do you think I would _do_?"

Lanthano sat back on his heels, folding the trousers into a neat stack. "Get into a lot of arguments that left you both annoyed, until he got tired of that and started saying 'Yes, sir' to every statement of yours, at which point _you_ would be annoyed. At a guess. Do you want to talk about people who aren't here, or do you want to get fucked?"

That wasn't enough to get Adrian to stop complaining. But it got the conversation diverted into a general set of complaints about company gossip long enough to start on the sex, and that, if nothing else, was one reliable way to get Adrian to leave off his critique of others for a few minutes at a time.


	46. In Which Memory Has An Edge

It's the stupidest place for this to happen. At a table by the river, with a handful of mortals, drinking beer and complaining about the release schedule of video games in different parts of the world. The conversation's largely eluding me; most of it is in German, on which I still have nothing near fluency, and it's full of jargon I'm not familiar with.

But when in Rome, do as the Romans, and my Role is that of a spoiled young woman of about the same age as these university students. Both lacking access to a pack of rich children around the right age, and not being much interested in them, I have instead fallen in with university students. Some days it's all philosophy, handled about as adeptly as it was by those debating clubs back in Stygia; some days it's literature and politics and the state of the economy; today it's video games. So be it. Prisca is translating bits into English for me, and at my other elbow, Ulrich has a drawling commentary in mediocre French. The only reason I'm not dropping all my attention to my beer is that some of this might prove interesting to Halyna, and I feel I ought to send her an email about something. Just to say hi. She's sent two, and a text message--I still don't know how they route these things between the various planes of reality--and if I keep not responding, she's going to take it as a tacit response to stop bothering me.

Which it's not, exactly. I'm just not sure how to deal with new acquaintances through text. It's easier when I have some body language to work from. I have a clearer reading on these people at the table, recently met and mortal and largely speaking a language I can barely order lunch in, than I do on the coworkers I'm mostly familiar with through email and memos.

Still haven't figured out what the Japan division is up to. Some sort of socialist commune hive-mind democracy...thing. But apparently it works for them, and it's none of my business.

This is the sort of thing running through my head when Prisca translates something for me, about some stupid game plot and the main character trying to find his kidnapped girlfriend, it's made of cliche, and there is no reason why I should think, _I wonder if Zhune's still looking for me._

_Of course he is._

I don't recall the rest of that conversation. I wasn't paying attention after that point.

When the group breaks up for the afternoon, Prisca follows me back towards my car. She's my favorite of this group of mortals so far; this is not saying much. They're not quite interchangeable. Different areas of study, heights and hair colors and voices and mannerisms. Prisca is the helpful one. She's internalized certain cultural memes that don't mesh well with me about nurturing and sympathizing and making sure everyone's happy. She ought to be going into some sort of educational field, but she's actually in civil engineering. I expect she'll end up as a project manager there. For a human, she's pretty clever.

"Is there something wrong, Rachel?" She's earnest and means well, and should get some credit for that. Right now I'm just--I don't want to deal with it. Pretending to be human and like I have ordinary human problems that some sympathetic words could fix.

And if I tell her that I'm fine, she will hound me for days, with all touching sincerity. Hell. "Homesick," I tell her, with a tight smile she's not meant to believe. "It hits at weird times. I'll see you around."

"Tonight? We're going to this club--"

"Not tonight," I say. I will scream, or break something, if I have to play this Role again today. "I've got a thing at home. Text me if anything exciting happens this weekend, will you?"

"Of course I will," she says, and smiles at me. Social connection checked and determiend to still be in place. Emotional reaction identified and addressed. Problem solved.

Good job, kid. May all your problems in life be that easy.

All the drive home I am not thinking--I am, let's be honest, thinking about how she looks nothing like Holly, has nothing in common with that long-dead woman except for species and gender and a few overlapping personality traits. Prisca's a smart kid, and she's probably not tangled up with any demons. She'll end up managing an engineering team somewhere banal and vital. Sixty years from now she'll keel over of natural causes, having left her mark on the world in the form of some properly built bridges and well-maintained civic buildings. It's about the best most humans could wish for.

Or maybe she'll be hit by a car tonight, or develop a rare cancer, or fall off a ladder or otherwise waste twenty years of rearing and education in some stupid useless manner. Humans do that a lot. They're fragile, fallible devices with a soul so closely tied to the meat that it only gets one shot. If she does a very good job at being herself, she gets to Heaven, where the primal Creator might or might not then consume her soul. Reports vary, there. If she does a very good job at being her worst self, she gets to Hell, where she's part of the grand division of souls shipped off to various Princes. And that's...like a life. Another one. At least for a while. Some places in Hell aren't as bad to live in as some places on the corporeal, though it's the opposite ends of each bell curve to find that overlap. Some places in Hell, a damned soul might live much, much longer than it did on the corporeal.

Most likely she'll do a little less than her best and a little better than her worse, and all her Forces will shred apart. Or cycle around in some fragment to be born again as someone else entirely, and I've never seen how that's an improvement. If you can't remember who you are, then you're not yourself. Celestial Forces may be the glue that holds us together, but it's memory that makes us ourselves.

That's how I know I am not at all the Lilim who was pulled apart to make me. I don't remember one damn thing from his life.

The only life I have is my own. This is it. The one shot I get, just like everyone else. I get a few more chances at bodies than the humans get, and oh, I've been lucky in so many ways, but it's still just the one life.

It made perfect sense to take this job. I couldn't keep on hoping anything would get better. I had to _do_ something. It made perfect sense at the time.

The car's in its place in the garage. I've parked neatly, because at least that I can do in a tidy and well-organized manner. Good job, Calabite. You're competent at something.

I rest my head on the steering wheel, and try not to remember the best parts of my life.

Doesn't help. I'm made of what I remember, and pretending otherwise does me no good.

At least I make it to my room without running into anyone on the way. Zabina's probably in her office, Giovanna's being a responsible secretary. There's a stack of papers on my desk waiting for review before dinner, a book beside them--I need to ask Ash what he wants to read next--and I am not up to dealing with any of them right now.

I start out by leaning against the door, but pretty soon I'm just sitting against it. Knees to my chest and arms around myself. Like that helps any.

When I escaped the god of whales, who was mad as only the righteously angry can be, my partner caught me. He waited there for me and he caught me. Arms around me while I sobbed out a Habbalite emotional haze in his arms, never mind that strangers were watching.

It was an act. It was a show of affection because of what those people expected. It was _true_ , damn it, damn him, damn me. He never let me go. (He never let me escape, and I had to run in the middle of the night before he could realize what I was doing.) He said partner like the word meant something. Even if it didn't mean what it did when I said it. Even if it didn't mean what I wanted it to.

He never hurt me. I mean. We argued. He did things I didn't want. Held me down and told me yes and no and _this_ as he liked, and never apologized for it, except through gifts and favors afterward. And he'd take the gifts away again, just to prove a point. Never get too attached to anything. Never care enough for one item that anyone could track you through it. Never care for anyone, no friends or rivals or lovers or students or anyone else at all, except for your partner.

I don't think he would have forgiven me for loving our Prince, if I'd ever managed it. He does. But he can have all sorts of friends. It's only me who's supposed to find him enough.

He was enough, wasn't he? We did some amazing work. Just the two of us. Day and night on the road and in hotel rooms and, on occasion, wandering through a forest arguing over whose fault that was. The Boss could've sent any sort of Djinn to keep track of my disloyal, unreliable self, and I got _that_ one. The one who watched my back and came to save me and stood in front of bullets for me. Supported my crazy plans and made them work.

I remember standing beneath the umbrella he brought, because he was the sort of person to think of these things. Shoulder to shoulder, as if I could just lean in and. No. Not get what I wanted. Only _almost_. That was the whole fucking problem, wasn't it? He was ready to give me almost everything I wanted, and I couldn't be happy with that. Not unless he'd pretend to not be a Djinn.

So I gave up what I had, because I couldn't have it all, and has that made me happy? Am I happy _now_? Is this good enough, for the rest of my life? It had better be. There's no backing up or changing my mind. I gave up on that opportunity when I asked the Marquis for help. Whatever she paid to get me, she expects me to earn out.

Maybe I have already. All I need to do is upset Zhune by leaving him. Everything I do for the company after that is a nice bonus.

It would be so easy to call him.

What a terrible idea. I know better. No one has even had to tell me this one. There is no point in the employee handbook where it says, "After you've been stolen from another place, avoid saying hello to the people you were stolen from." Employees are expected to know. Even Guo could figure out that much.

I'm not sure I count as stolen. I did walk away on my own. Maybe I stole myself. If there was ever a point we were both clear on, it was that he considered me his favorite possession.

But both parts of that mattered. His partner. Two words, equally important.

At any moment I could throw Essence into the wind with a few words attached, and be sure that it'd get to him. That he would, barring its arrival during Trauma (surely I would've heard if anything happened), know it was from me.

He always knows where I am. He wouldn't be harassing Ash if he weren't still attuned. If he didn't still care.

I shouldn't call it caring. He's a Djinn. He's just possessive. It's not the same thing at all, and isn't that why I'm such a mess over that man? Because I can't keep these definitions straight. Because I try to believe that even though every partner he's ever had has been discarded or killed or crippled, that he'd keep _me_. That he'd keep standing up for me in front of the Boss whenever it was needed, right up to the end.

Right up until the day he didn't, when I was still expecting him to be there. Just look what happened to Henry.

He would not have caught me every time.

Maybe I would've died before I found out.

No going back. There is no going back. There is no point in wanting what I can't have. What I never could have had, no matter how long I stayed.

The door vibrates up and down my spine at the knock.

"It's dinner time," Giovanna says. "Leo? Are you in there?"

I roll my wrist over on my knees to check my watch. It'll need the band swapped out again soon. Five minutes late already. "Sorry," I say. "Lost track of time. I'll be right down."

My voice was perfectly steady, there. I wonder if she noticed what height it was coming from.

"If you would," she says, because _Hurry up already_ would be impolite.

I lever myself upward as her footsteps move away. I should've noticed the light fading outside. I have not looked at anything I'll be quizzed on tonight since I printed those sheets this morning. And...oh, I'm going to be a rumpled mess, curled up like that on the ground for...however long I was sitting there. Longer than was wise.

Better to show up even later, or looking this much of a mess? Well. Zabina will already be annoyed at the lateness, so later it is. I swing through the bathroom to wash my face and drag a comb through my hair, and try to review the new characters while I'm combing. These things do not combine well.

It's eight minutes past time when I reach the dining room. Unacceptably late, and I'm still looking more rumpled than I ought. Zabina's eyebrows climb as I sit down.

"Sorry," I say. "Should've been watching the clock."

"What happened?"

"Nothing," I say. "Lost track of time."

She doesn't believe me. I'm a pretty good liar, and she's pretty good at noticing when someone's lying, so I guess it balances out. All the same, she leaves that explanation on the table between us, and launches into the usual interrogation. Quiz. Whichever.

I'm not doing well in Mandarin. It's less different from English than Helltongue is, but both of those were imprinted on my brain, and then French had enough similarity to one that I could follow the patterns along. Tonight I'm doing particularly badly, because I haven't studied and I'm still distracted. (Zhune knows Mandarin perfectly, and probably several other languages spoken in China. That's where he used to live. He would do better there than I'm doing in any of this.) And between questions, I'm expected to keep eating.

Giovanna's a decent cook, as far as I can tell. Even if the sort of food Zabina serves isn't to my taste. (You can't get decent barbecue in this city. I know, I've looked.) It's good Role work to eat regularly. I just don't want to be bothered right now. I would like to hide in my room until the city starts going to sleep, and then go climb something tall and difficult and dangerous. Which is childish, but there you have it. I'm not feeling particularly mature tonight. Failing at almost every question Zabina puts to me doesn't help with this impression.

Zabina sits back while Giovanna sweeps through to collect dirty plates. "What was so distracting?" my supervisor asks, and I find we have moved to Helltongue. Not only is the language lesson over, we are now being deliberately, impolitely exclusionary. You'd never be able to tell from Giovanna's face that she minds, but she does indeed.

"Nothing important." Which is, I would like to point out, entirely true, at least from the company perspective. My own trivial emotional wobbles aren't particularly relevant to the work everyone does. I have growing suspicions as to what makes up a percentage of that, but none strong enough to talk to a coworker about yet.

"Nothing important distracted you enough to make you late for dinner."

It was _eight minutes_. "Yes. It won't happen again."

Zabina stands up. This is the point at which I realize that she's angry. She does not fly into rages; she doesn't shout. But that was a sudden movement and less graceful than usual.

She strides away toward her office, a flick of her hand indicating that I should follow.

Giovanna watches me go with a lowered gaze that's nothing but thoughtful contemplation. I don't like it. Right now, she's lucky that I'm not the type to hold grudges for anything so mild as what she's willing to do to me.

In the office, Zabina doesn't sit down. She waits by the door, and shuts it behind me. "Sit," she says, and I take the usual chair.

With some people, I'd take this as a sign to apologize more fervently, but that's not what she's looking for.

"You did Tether work, Leo," she says. Standing in front of her desk, like it's a bulwark at her back against anything that might come at us. "Dangerous, fast, complicated. You wouldn't show that late during a job, because it would matter. If you believed that arriving at appointments with me wasn't important, you would have been less than punctual before. You have not been. You weren't caught in traffic or cutting a return too close. You were here for hours beforehand. So tell me, what exactly was so unimportant that you forgot the time and your obligations?"

"Nothing. It was _nothing_."

Zabina presses two fingers a spot between her eyes. A moment for a breath. Makes me want to cringe, though she's scarcely raised so much as her voice against me before, even during our arguments. "Leo," she says. "Answer my questions truthfully."

The Geas locks in like a hand on my throat. Maybe I should've expected that. My hands are white-knuckled on the arms of this chair, but I dip my head as graciously as I can manage. It's not unfair.

"What delayed you?"

It turns out I can speak steadily about this if I try. Maybe I can give the Geas credit for that. It's not a decision, anymore. "The inside of my head's a mess because I was reminded of my partner. Ex-partner. You'd think I'd be over it by now."

"Of course you aren't," Zabina says. "Will this be a problem?" She sits against the edge of her desk, hands resting beside her. The anger's gone just like that, turned into focus and precision. It's enough to make me wonder what she thought I could've been up to.

"'Problem' is a big word. I don't know. It's not making me feel great, but I can cope with that."

"Security problem," she says; I don't think that's clarification, but the first in a list. "Will you try to contact him?"

"No. Probably not. I don't know." The Geas can only do so much when I don't know what's true. "I didn't call him. I wanted to and I didn't, which ought to count for something, but I don't know if it does. It would be _stupid_ to call him. What would I even say? Why should I want to?"

Zabina tilts a hand in the air. "How old are you?"

She knows the answer to this one. So she's making a point, though I can't see it yet, beyond the usual refrain of _You're young and stupid and you'll agree with me if you ever manage to grow up,_ which I've gotten from enough people already. "Twenty-one years, more or less. I'd have to check someone else's paperwork for the date I was made."

"How long have you been with Theft?"

"About seven years?" The official tally is nine. Usually I don't talk about the difference, and that Zabina does not look surprised--well. No surprise that the Marquis shared those details with her.

"You were attached to that Djinn for that stretch of time. A large fraction of your life. Did you expect to have detached entirely in less than a year?"

"I don't know what I expected, but I know I should be better at this. He should be out of my head by now." I'm angry, and I don't even know who at. "He doesn't even have the kind of resonance that can get in there. It's stupid for me to still be--hung up about this."

"Oh, _resonances_ ," Zabina says, with a disdain she usually reserves for discussions of petty vandalism or abbreviations in text messages. "Most demonic resonance is a hammer, and the world is not, in fact, made of nails. Anyone with some wit and skill can do a much better job of bending a mind to their intentions over the course of a few months, much less years, than a Habbalite or Balseraph can with some temporary blow. How old do you think that Djinn is?"

What dangerous territory we're walking towards. "Thousands of years," I say, as the level of imprecision the Geas will let me get away with.

"With a few score partners to perfect his technique on, over that time. If you had recovered entirely in half a year, I would suspect you of hiding something else." She lifts a hand as if she might touch me, then returns it to the desk. We're too far apart for that to be done casually, if she has any interest in casual movement. Which I suspect she does not. "So he still has a hold on your mind. You're unlikely to forget why you left. Are you?"

"I won't forget," I say. "It only--seems. Like an overreaction. In retrospect."

"Why?" She's not being cruel, whatever it feels like. She's getting the information she needs, because I haven't been willing to hand it over without this pressure. (I hate interrogation by Geas. It's so much easier to redirect the conversation when all I can do is lose a few fingers, or a vessel.) 

"Because I've had worse partners. Because I was so lucky to find someone who would watch out for me." I lay my hands over my knees, where I won't damage the furniture. Easier to replace my own clothing, if it comes to that. "Because I didn't have any way of knowing what this place would be like, except different, and I was already doing better than most demons ever will. It was idiotic of me to run away and hope for something _better_."

"Perhaps," Zabina says. "Yet here you are, with no way to turn back. Will you try to contact him?"

"I don't mean to. I have no way of guaranteeing I won't do something stupid in the future, since it wouldn't exactly be the first time I've made bad decisions on the spur of the moment."

"Would you like a way of stopping yourself?"

It takes me half a second to realize what she means. "Maybe. Yes. I don't know. It's not as if you have to ask."

"I am not in the habit of Geasing coworkers without excellent reason," Zabina says, "nor do I carry an enormous set of hooks on you. Most of what I've done for you is no more than is proper and expected from a teacher to a student, and thus not worthy to be considered a debt. Furthermore, I dislike applying Geases to coworkers because odd circumstances do arrive which might put them in an unpleasant no-win situation. Do you want to be bound against this?"

There's a din in my head, trying to work out my answer to that. But what I say is "Yes. Please."

Zabina makes a little half twist in the air with her fingers, as if she's pulling together threads. "Do you swear not to contact that Djinn who was once your partner, unless absolute necessity or the orders of a superior compels you?"

"Yes," I say, and there's the Geas, locking into my soul. It can join the favor I owe the god of whales, and the one at my throat that keeps me speaking the truth. It's an awkward sort of weight to have sitting on me, keeping my Discord company. All the marks on my soul that no one but a Prince can remove. (And even Princes can't take off my Discord. Not if they want to still have me around afterward. _Editing_ it was horrific enough.) "I'm sorry. This is ridiculous."

"Ask me some time how long it took me to give up the habits of Greed," Zabina says. "Criticizing yourself for failure to change immediately has no utility, and can become a way of avoiding change if you make a habit of it. Less apologizing, more work." She allows herself a small, wry smile. "Though I realize you'd like more work that isn't languages."

"I don't want make-work, either. I want to be _useful_ for something." I scrub my mouth with the back of my hand. The knees of my pants are wearing through. "I want to be useful on my own for once, and not as a replacement for someone else that people would rather have had instead."

"You're not a replacement," Zabina says, sharp when I wasn't expecting it. "If anyone has told you otherwise, they're dealing with their own problems, and you can ignore that comment."

"It's mostly been implied," I say. But other people have said it outright, and she's argued back against that, or she wouldn't be so pointed on this matter. "It's not like it would be the first time."

"As with your former partner."

"No. I mean--he's had partners before, of course. But he didn't spend a lot of time talking about them. At all. I just meant when I was first made. The only reason I started with nine Forces was because my--because Belial took apart some Knight's former assistant, and made me out of the pieces. She spent a lot of time telling me that I wasn't as good." I shrug that one off, because it really has been long enough that it doesn't bother me anymore, compared to much else. She got what was coming to her. "She knew she wasn't going to get a Lilim back, but she wanted an Impudite, not a Calabite. As if Princes take special orders from their Servitors. She should've known better."

"What were you made of?" Zabina asks, oh so carefully.

"The Forces of a Lilim. I'm not sure if he was sworn to Fire, or just contracting. I know he was Free once, but if it was a contract, it was solid enough that no one objected to Belial pulling him apart. I mean. Not then. It sort of--turned into this whole mess with someone he worked for using me to work against that Knight, years later." I can feel myself trying to curl up in the chair. Hands flat across your knees, Leo, and steady breaths. You've told other people how to keep calm before, and this isn't even your story to be concerned about. "It's not particularly relevant. Forces aren't anything but raw material once they're pulled off a person. And I've been told I shouldn't talk about it, on account of it being dangerous."

"Who told you that?" Focused. That's what Zabina is again, when we'd almost found a breath in the conversation.

"Ash. That Free Lilim I talk to sometimes."

"Ah." Zabina looks at me steadily for a long moment. I think her hands are steady on the desk the same way mine are on my knees, though I don't know why. Princes recycle Forces all the time; I know our Boss has. "Is there anything else you think I ought to know?"

"Nothing that comes to mind."

"Go on, then." She leaves her place on the desk to take her chair behind it, where I expect she'll be half the night. Doing work I still know very little about. "Go over today's material again, for breakfast, and then do what you'd like. Do tidy yourself up if what you'd like is to be seen in public, though."

Fortunately, what I'd like to do is spend my time after studying on top of some high place where no one can see me. No tidying required. I can be miserable in my own head quite peacefully for a while there, if no new Seraph snipers show up to make trouble.


	47. An Interlude, In Which My Supervisor Does Administrative Work

There were certain advantages to having spent seven centuries working for a Word that loved its bureaucracy. Bureaucracy, and other things. Formality, tradition, the subtle social maneuvering that could only be performed under the cover of rigidly enforced and impossibly complex codes of etiquette. (At times Zabina could understand the lure of the Game; rules were such a versatile tool, and a chance to enforce them on others? Catnip to demons.) One developed a knack for graceful phrasing of uncomfortable discussions.

As such, it only took her a few minutes to write her employer a polite email requesting more information on her student's background, and that blessed note did not so much as imply concern for not having been told about some of these details earlier.

Then she sat back, and folded her hands in her lap. It was not, precisely, that she no longer felt calm. Every matter that was of real significance had been dealt with, or at least addressed in such a way that she felt confident about being able to deal with it in due course. Trust a child from Fire to be unable to identify abuse that was neither physically damaging nor based on resonance... Oh, trust a child of nearly any of those brutish Words to be unable to spot such a thing. Nevertheless, that was _dealt_ with. The one real matter that needed addressing.

And there were other matters worth looking into. She took her eyes off the number on the icon representing her email program, which had not changed since she last looked at it, and called Nhung.

"I'd be happy to help," said the Impudite, after a few minutes of pleasantries, general gossip, and getting down to business. "Like I'm not up to my eyeballs in work? But everything I'm working on this month's deep cover stuff, and last I heard, he doesn't have the vessel, language, or cultural cues for working over here. I can give you a call if I need an American businessman on short notice. He can play corporate, right?"

"Adequately," Zabina said. "He'd need a day or two of coaching for the industry in question." She was reasonably sure of this being true, and if she turned out to be mistaken... Well. It would be a disappointment, but probably not a catastrophe. No one gave out impossibly sensitive jobs to new employees, however talented.

"Usually I'd just call Adrian for that kind of thing," Nhung said. One could nearly hear her eyes rolling across the phone lines. "However, if he's going to complain about overwork and other people not doing his jobs... We'll see if this shuts him up."

"How soon can you find something?" Zabina asked, spinning a silver pen between her fingers. Not antique, but venerable in its own way. Give it another century and she might trust that she could keep it, and know for certain that it was reliable.

"It'll be at least a month, maybe two. Unless you want me to make something up, for a test run--"

"No, no make-work. I'd rather test him on a real project." Zabina set the pen down, in line with the edge of her desk. "He reacts rather poorly to secret tests, at that."

"Maybe he should get over that," Nhung said. "From what Lanthano said, that kid's loaded to the eyeballs with twitch points." She laughed, a glass clinking on her side of the line. "No, I don't mean to criticize. It always takes them a while to get past these things. Do you remember when Wren--no, I suppose that was before your time. Artem, then! It was three months before anyone but Daosheng or Lanthano could lure him out of his office, and three times as long before he'd stay in the light for any length of time. Still, this stage is always a bit tedious, isn't it? That's why I don't take the new ones."

"You don't take the new ones," Zabina said, "because most of the new ones don't arrive with a vessel and corporeal experience."

"You're welcome to the exciting educational experience," Nhung said. "No offense, but I didn't sign on for babysitting. Still, if you'll vouch for his basic competence, I'll give him work when I've got it."

"It'd be appreciated. It's either that or start dropping hints to Adrian, and you know how that can go wrong."

"Well, _Adrian_ ," Nhung said, as if that explained all. Perhaps it did. "He was never very good at the work/life divide before Daosheng died, and it's not like Valentin snapping helped that any. Give him another decade, and Chaixin will probably smack some sense back into him."

"I don't believe a sense of relaxation and patience can be imposed from above," Zabina said.

"Can't hurt to try, can it? I'll volunteer for the first strike. Every time he comes through I have to go do emotional management on half my people." Some noise started up beyond the Impudite, engines or machinery. "Gotta go. Luck, Zabina."

Zabina spent some time dealing with ordinary work, after the phone call. Work was always a good way to distract oneself from unsettling matters. (Adrian was more transparent than he thought he was, ever and always.) When Giovanna arrived with some household management excuse while seeking reassurance, that was a distraction too. Servants, like cars and buildings, required regular maintenance. Frequent small repairs were the best way to avoid large, expensive, inconvenient ones later on.

The same rather went for a person maintaining their own self, now, didn't it?

She set that thought aside--not a new one, but an uncomfortable one at the moment--and send a purely formal message to Adrian about some minor work matters. None terribly urgent, but the sort of thing he would need brought to his attention eventually. She had learned to save up small matters for excuses (had she taught that to Giovanna by accident, or had the girl discovered the trick on her own?) to speak with someone when there were other matters at hand.

Everyone knew that one of the two remaining Lilim of the company was purely business-minded. Unlikely to bother anyone for gossip or social needs, outside of the events that would draw multiple coworkers together anyway. When she sent them information, they read it, whether or not they regarded it as she might prefer. What she wanted to imply within the relevant work information, she got across. It was only a matter of holding onto the right details until they could be arranged properly.

If he wasn't terribly distracted, Adrian would show up within a week or two and demand to borrow her student for some important matter. The experience would be good for both of them.

The number on the icon incremented upward.

Zabina tapped the message open. Yes, the Marquis had certainly been aware that her newest hire had been made in such a way that suggested a reuse of recently disbanded Forces. No, the Marquis had not been aware of the specifics, nor considered the details of any significance.

Chaixin's message did not instruct her to drop the question; neither did it imply any great interest in the answers. There was no reason to expect otherwise. Princes did, after all, recycle Forces all the time. And once a Prince had decided a demon ought to be so recycled, why should anyone care about the previous individual? One might as well wonder who had last held a coin, or how it had been acquired.

Zabina leaned back in her desk chair, and wished that Itimad had maintained some sort of psychological coherence after Daosheng's death. There was no use talking to Wren, who didn't remember the voice of her own mother. Then there were various previous colleagues from Greed, scattered to a half dozen other Words, any of which would use a hint of weakness against her.

What she needed was more information. Ideally, the sort she didn't have to pay for, but the world was seldom ready to meet her ideals.

She checked her files on Leo's call logs, and picked out a number on another continent.

"Hel _lo_ , Ash speaking," chirped a voice on the other end. "You're calling from a long way off. What do you need this afternoon?"

Zabina had worked out the answer to that question before calling. "What, exactly, have you been telling my student about his background?"

The pause on the other end of the line had a particular quality to it. Startlement? That seemed the right word. "Right," Ash said, "we can have this conversation over Skype, or we can just not have it."

"I was told that you're a hound for hooks," Zabina said. "Very well. Call."

She closed out the call on the cell phone, and waited for the Skype request to arrive. It took him nearly five minutes of searching to work out how to access that contact point, and she wondered idly during that time if he'd had to pay, or take on debts, to get the information so quickly. Perhaps he only needed to make himself a cup of coffee and then check his existing files.

His vessel looked nearly as young as he was, a skinny fey creature with enormous eyes and exquisitely detailed hair. It must have cost him a fortune. He smiled at her through the webcam, as posed as any Impudite. "What gets me a call from one of my big sisters, on such short notice?"

"You're not as clever as you'd like to believe," Zabina said, and was not fooled by his insouciant shrug. She sorted through a handful of tiny Needs in rapid succession before the difficulty of parsing them through the technological transmission threatened to give her a headache. "What have you been telling him?"

"Very little." Ash hadn't lost his smile, but he set his shoulders back in that sprawl across some absurd modern couch. So he knew to take some matters seriously. "He's pretty _sharp_ , haven't you noticed? Give him a few pieces and he'll put them together himself. Not always in the shape you were expecting, but in a way that they fit."

"So you did know."

Ash's pretty little fingers drummed over a kneecap. "You'll have to be more specific."

"Little brother," Zabina said, "you know what he was made from. I imagine you know _who_ he was made from, and if you care about that at all, you'd be better equipped than I am to have already discovered far more detail. It doesn't bother you?"

"I don't see why that sort of thing should bother _you_ ," Ash said, eyebrows drawing in. His emotions played across his face as if he were shouting them; she knew better than to trust that. "You sold all your Forces the day you were made, so you've never properly owned them."

"You live in New York," Zabina said, "in what appears to be a flat with an excellent view, in a vessel like that. I imagine you owe more to Syntyche than you do to Mother. All that debt, and you believe you own your Forces?"

"Debt can be paid off," Ash said, "but binding to a Word is forever." He sniffed, drawing back fractionally from the camera. "One Word or another."

"Call me when you're free of debt," Zabina said, "and I'll believe you."

He stared at her for a moment longer, then let his gaze fall. Not enough to cut off eye contact. Merely enough to acknowledge that a certain hierarchy had been established, and that it wouldn't do him much good to contest it. Not today. "I can't give you the details," he said, "and I'll give you _this_ for free, that you shouldn't ask. He shouldn't even be talking about it! I told him that much. It's not useful information, anyway. Knowing more will just make you feel worse. And there's nothing I can do to help with _that_ , either. I don't do emotional support by Skype."

Zabina raised an eyebrow, and waited.

"...not _often_ ," Ash said, "and certainly not with older sisters who call me just to _imply_ things."

"I've kept my hands off so far," Zabina said, "because my student gave me reason to believe that you were reliable and not much of a security risk. Now I'm wondering how much about his past isn't in the files you sold us."

"We gave you solid information," Ash said, drawing himself back up. A touch to professional pride and he was ready to forget everything else, at least for a few sentences. "Even if I didn't handle that myself, I'm sure of it. Of course it's not complete. We gave you what we had that wasn't locked out, and anything that's been locked out, someone else paid _more_ to keep away. That's only fair."

"Perhaps," Zabina said. "Given how insignificant most people would find that information, I can only assume that it was left out as trivial, or some Lilim paid to keep it secret. You don't think it's trivial, any more than I do. Does it count as paying to suppress the information when you're paying yourself? I'd love to see the accounting on that."

"I'm sure you'd love to see all our financials," Ash said, having recovered enough equilibrium to give that an acid sweetness, "but they're not for sale. Who is he _telling_ about these things? Can you convince him to let it rest? It doesn't matter to anyone except--the sort of people he shouldn't talk to about it."

"I want the rest of the information," Zabina said.

"I know you do, but since the locks are paid for--"

"No," Zabina said, "not those parts. The raw data. What you filter for your results, and don't show the client."

Ash hooked a knee up to his chest, and laid his chin atop it to consider her. "Oh," he said. "You don't like how much further in his head I got than you did, do you?"

"Those files would include information on known hooks, wouldn't they?"

He twisted an imaginary thread between his fingers. "Maybe. But you can ask _him_ , if you want to know what I hold on him. It's all up front."

"Surely."

"It is, sister, believe it or not. I don't blindside my friends, any more than I warn my enemies."

"You're far too young to have proper enemies," Zabina said. "Though it's a fine principle. Nonetheless, you're changing the subject. I want that data. Unless you would like to tell me you're not allowed to give it out?"

He hesitated. There was etiquette about certain questions, especially to those in the information business, which she knew full, and when she'd broken it. "It's not standard," he said.

"Lucifer forbid that an organization of Free Lilim disregard their traditions and rules," Zabina said dryly. That raised an indignant flush in him; she decided to pause on that, rather than pressing the point. Free sisters, when cornered, were inclined to snap back. Much like--other people she knew. Perhaps it was simply a common trait among demons.

"You're asking for the raw data we work from, when you already have the standard results," he said. "That's _practically_ asking for our sorting algorithms and analysis approach. I won't call it a trade secret, but it won't come cheap, and anything that seems even loosely connected to a paid lock wouldn't come through."

"I didn't expect cheap," Zabina said. "You wouldn't offer a low price unless you were selling me trash."

Ash found a sweet little smile, as if he'd finally remembered which pocket he'd stored it in. "Shall we negotiate?"

"Certainly. I'll offer three days, not counting flight days if we decide to run this through corporeal transportation routes."

He was a clever child, and it still took him a second to catch up with her. "You're bargaining with his _time_?"

"Strictly speaking," Zabina said, "with his presence. Both are currently mine to distribute. Would you prefer to deal in cash?"

"And here I thought you didn't mind him having outside friends," Ash said. He was angry again, a calculated risk on her part; he would make more mistakes, and more emotional decisions, but she didn't particularly want to inspire thoughts of long-term revenge.

"He can talk with you all he likes. If that's all you care for, cash it is. If you'd rather borrow him, that's a delay in my work, and that does come with a price tag."

"Two weeks," Ash said.

"Four days. You couldn't keep him entertained for two weeks, unless you have a bank you want robbed, and I'd rather he not risk it. He'll have a companion."

"We could rob a bank," Ash said. "It'd be fun. Do you really trust him so little that you need to send a babysitter along?"

"He's not the one I worry about," Zabina said, and watched to see who Ash would fill in as the other responsible party. The shift in his expression suggested that he was clever enough not to assume he was the threat.

"One week, not counting travel, and can you send someone _reasonable_? No Shedim."

"I'll send someone polite," Zabina said. "No Shedim. No hooks laid in either. Voluntary agreements are acceptable, though if he comes back with any debt worth more than a day, I will be questioning whether it's voluntary."

"Oh, he wouldn't take anything big on. Makes him nervous. How soon?"

"Within a month. I'll have to check my schedule, and I imagine you have some blackout dates of your own."

Ash waved that off with an irritable flick of his hand, settling his knees down into a cross-legged position that most people could only have held awkwardly on that couch. He kept it with perfect ease. Lust had missed a good chance, when they didn't coax him to bind after his making. (Or, knowing Syntyche's habits and employees, Fate had. There was another Word that could appreciate subtlety and seduction both.) "Any day is fine. Do I get to break the news that you're selling off his company?"

"I'll tell him myself. When will you get me the data?"

"Give me a week," he said. So it wasn't anything accessible from the corporeal side, not directly, nor the kind of request he could pass on casually without explanation from a distance.

It was petty to take satisfaction in driving someone to bend the rules to get what they really wanted, but there it was. Every Word she'd ever served would approve.

"Do we have a deal?" she asked.

"I suppose we _do_ ," Ash said, his smile hooked at one side. He did not say a variety of things that he might have liked to, given his Needs, but dipped his head towards the camera. "Pleasure dealing with you, sister."

"The same," Zabina said, and closed the program. It was nearly true.


	48. In Which Most Transactions Aren't Financial

I didn't mean to come back to the house damaged again. If anything, I meant to be careful. Prove my general competence and all that. Since I'm not getting a lot of chances to wow my supervisor with my skills in demolition, heist-planning, or architectural design, I could at least meet standards. That'd be something.

Turns out that I should've checked the weather before I left. Scaling buildings that aren't really designed for that purpose combines poorly with heavy rain. Possibly my current state of mind doesn't combine real well with those things either, at that.

At least this time nothing's broken.

Well, one finger, but it'll heal on its own.

Under the circumstances, I come in through the front door rather than my own window. (Could make it through that window even with the finger broken, but given the rain's still coming down, it's probably best not to risk it.) Giovanna's waiting in the foyer. Her eyes narrow at the state I'm in before she composes herself.

"You're up late," I say, and look down at the dripping I'm doing on the floor. "I'll get a mop."

"Zabina wants to see you," Giovanna says.

"She really could text instead of keeping you up late." I peel off my jacket, and hang it up by the door where it'll drip in a concentrated area. "Or call. Or send a message. Or leave a note on the door."

But then who would mop the floors? Apparently not me. Giovanna ducks her head as the politest acknowledgment she can give without agreeing with me in the slightest, and doesn't give me so much as a bland statement to respond to. Servant mode, activated. I suppose I can't blame her for retreating to the safest approach she has available when there's trouble at home.

There isn't much of that. Zabina doesn't seem inclined to--well, I didn't _think_ she was inclined to hold this evening's discussion against me, given what she said at the time. But I don't think I've been summoned into her office just to talk about dripping on the floors.

On consideration, I switch back to my Role-appropriate vessel before leaving the foyer. I'll just have to remember my male vessel's state before I use it for anything else, so as not to raise awkward questions later. (Also a thing to remember: getting in some more casual theft, if only for the Rite. Switching back and forth between vessels eats a fair amount of Essence.) Worth it to avoid awkward questions now, though I assume if Zabina really wants to make an issue out of something, she can. I'm never quite up to fashion standards in this house.

Zabina's partly distracted when I arrive, waving me towards a chair (good call on the vessel swap, I believe) without looking up from the folder she's studying. "Did you have a good time?" she asks, rather pro forma, but still expecting an answer.

"Moderately," I say. "The rain was a problem. Maybe I should've gone out with the humans instead."

"Perhaps." She closes the folder to consider me directly. "Did you pick up any new trouble?"

Oh, as opposed to the pre-existing trouble that sort of trails me around. "Nothing major. Broke a finger. Learned some fun new facts about the coefficient of friction on wet stone."

"How useful," Zabina says. She picks up a silver pen that may well be worth more than her desk. It's hard to assess the relative value of the furniture and items in this place; anything that isn't a computer is older than I am. (Zhune would know.) "You may want to remember that for your next outing." The pen tilts between her fingers; I am almost sure that's a temporizing gesture. She doesn't have enough clear tells for me to have worked out all the details yet. "I called your friend."

What a horrifying set of possibilities now present themselves. Best reduce them to a known horror. "Which one?"

"My little brother," Zabina says. "He knew about your background, and suggests--as firmly as he could, under the circumstances--that you keep the matter quieter."

"You told me to tell the truth," I say. That came out too much like an accusation. I'd as soon pull my knees up and get a defensive barrier in front of them, but that makes me look too childish, especially in this vessel. "It doesn't mean anything, anyway. But I don't usually talk about it."

"Keep that up," she says. The pen tilts to the other side. "You'll have a week's visit with him soon. If you don't want to go, now is the moment to speak up."

Well, that was unexpected. Enough that I'm still scrambling to work out what's going on here, because it can't be as simple as a gift. Never is. "No, I...don't mind going, but is this vacation or work?"

"I traded a week of your time," Zabina says, "for certain files. You have no obligations to him beyond being there; you can occupy your time as you like. Homework aside." She sets the pen down on her desk. "He doesn't think you'll like the idea of having your time and presence used as currency."

Ash is Free. He understands freedom and slavery both better than I ever will. I spread my fingers wide across my knees. "It's not the first time."

"No. Nor is work always to our taste." Zabina taps her nails on the desk, a short sound, and waits for me to look her in the eye. "Your time is mine to arrange. I do not intend to distribute it carelessly."

"I'm surprised," I say. "That he'd trade information just for a visit. That's his _work_."

"He works to afford what he wants," Zabina says, "and wants you. There's no reason to be surprised."

I wonder which one of them suggested the trade. No, I'm probably be happier not knowing. Not going to ask. Let's assume it was Zabina, who is as careful about me as she is with Giovanna. Less careful because I can handle more difficult situations than a mortal, more careful because I am, in theory, more of a long-term investment. She told me to obey any reasonable requests made by Knights in the company; this gives me a better idea of what she considers reasonable.

And it's not as if she sold any particular services of mine. (I don't think Ash would have asked for that.) Only my presence. It's a strange way to visit a friend, but it's not as if I'm being--well, I am being rented out. "Should I ask what my rates are?"

"Cash is a useful tool," Zabina says, "but we seldom commit important resources towards its acquisition. Better to make useful investments and then take what we need as the situation arises."

"It'd just be useful to know," I say.

"You're an employee," Zabina says. "That's not how you're valued." Her eyebrows rise fractionally. "Do you think I would have arranged this exchange if there weren't value for us in sending you there, beyond the deal itself?"

If I ask her what else is there of value, she'll just tell me to figure it out myself. I can do that much without the directions. "I suppose not," I say. "Going back to the country should be--interesting."

"You won't be alone," Zabina says. Her fingernails strike the edge of her desk. "I don't intend to be careless, under the circumstances."

The circumstances are my partner. Ex-partner. And possibly some lingering suspicion of Ash, who is not at all harmless, but not the kind of dangerous I can't deal with. "Yes, of course. Who'll you send?"

"We'll see," she says. "Do you have any questions?"

I don't. Which means I'm dismissed.

I mean, I do have questions, but they're not the ones I want to ask _her_. They're the sort that rattle through my head while I'm walking back to my room. What are we getting out of this, beyond some sort of goodwill from a single Free Lilim on another continent? Or am I so cracked right now that I need to be shipped off to a new friend for reassurance?

How much is my time worth, and how do the rates change when I'm supposed to do more than show up?

I wonder how it compares to the way she uses Giovanna's time.

Numbers wouldn't really help, but they'd give me something solid to look at instead of wondering these things.

I snap on the light in my room, and sit down on the edge of the bed. Shadows never look right in artificial lighting. It took weeks after I first got to the corporeal plane for anything to look right in sunlight, and now I expect it. Like it's some sort of default for how the world should be seen.

 _Should_ is such a loaded word. The sun's been around longer than the fires of Sheol, and those fires have been there longer than the skyscrapers of New York, most of which predate my existence in turn, so how the hell am I supposed to know which place is more _natural_ or what _should_ be? Ash fits into his city like he was born there, and he's been there maybe two years. Sunlight seems right to me, and the first light I ever saw was the fire of Sheol. Maybe there's no _should_ but what we set for ourselves.

I'm not sure what distinguishes should from want from need. How deeply we've internalized the expectation, maybe. Right now it feels like it _should_ be sunny (maybe on another side of the world) and I _want_ a shower and... I don't know what I actually need. Maybe Zabina could tell me, if I asked nicely.

I leave a trail of clothing from my room to the bathroom, like I was raised by wolves, and take the shower that I want until I can stop thinking about that for a while.

What I told Giovanna a while back was true. We can't sleep. It's a failing. Some days I want to get away from the inside of my own head, just for a little while. It's as much a reason for the climbing as anything else. When I need to think about where to put my hands and whether my weight will hold on what I've just decided to rest myself on, there's less chance of getting caught up in these stupid cycles of wondering about things I can't change or possibly even understand. Half the reason for every job we did on our own, between the ones people gave us, was just to--it wasn't about risk, exactly. But the risk helped. A reason not to think about other things.

I wonder how many of my life-changing decisions have been made because I just needed to distract myself from my own head. Not all of them. At least a few.

God, I miss Regan sometimes.

This house has adequately modern plumbing, but limited hot water. I turn off the shower when the temperature drops from near-scalding to merely hot. There's a weariness in my bones that's entirely mental. My body can't get tired the same way human bodies can. It has its limits, and they just aren't the same. No excuses to stop or pause or rest, when the Word of our Prince requires attention.

I leave the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist, and find a stack of my clothing--not what I was wearing, but a fresh outfit--laid on a chair by the door. Everything I left in the hallway has disappeared. That's not Zabina's work, but Giovanna's, and when does that girl get any sleep? She must be catching afternoon naps between her morning duties and the beginning of dinner preparation.

Someone is making a pointed remark, tacit though it may be, about household etiquette. Hint noted. I pull on what clothing's been left for me, and discover that I've been left with one of those stupid skirts that usually sit in the back of the wardrobe. It's still more dignified than walking around in my underwear.

Why anyone should care what I wear in a fifteen-step trip from the bathroom door to bedroom door, I don't know. But Zabina does have her standards. Once in a while I even meet them.

When I get to Ash's place, I intend to have a conversation with him about renting friends. If nothing else, he's the sort of person who would know exactly how it works. I _know_ he's had his time sold for worse before, and he can tell me what to expect, and what's...I don't know. Standard. For Lilim. You can trust Lilim, in a way you can't trust any other Bands. Doesn't mean they're nicer or more honest, but they have limits and rules that no one else does. And if I don't know those very well, he can explain them for me.

He probably will for free.

Zabina would for free. She does seem to believe strongly in educating me, and her idea of education is to make sure I know what _she_ knows. More the type of teacher who teaches the canon than the kind who sends students out to do original research, but I can work with that. I'm too far behind in company skills, whatever those may be, to get fussy because I'm not being allowed to make my own path.

I could ask her all sorts of things, if I knew where to start. And she knows what I need, or could. It's like an equation sitting there, these two concepts, that I'm not quite ready to work out across the equal sign.

But I know I'm not happy being nothing but the recipient of what she chooses to give me. It's--nice. Honestly. In some ways. Letting her decide what I should do, and trusting that it won't hurt. (Much.) Even if it's a little startling to realize that I do trust her that far, that specifically. She will keep pouring education into my head, and I can accept that. Like a good student. The way Giovanna takes every order she's given.

If all she wanted was someone who'd take what she handed out, over and over, she could've found more humans to work with.

I step back into the bathroom to try to drag my hair into something like order, if only with my fingers. Then I make my way downstairs. There's no sign of Giovanna, who _should_ be asleep by now, aside from the clean foyer showing that she was at work there. Only us celestials moving about the house at this time of night. I wonder if the Kyriotate down in the city gets bored, when everyone's asleep and it's curled up in some host that'd like to do the same. Probably there are nocturnal animals and humans both for it to occupy itself with.

The rest of us celestials have to occupy ourselves with work. Or each other.

I end up standing outside the door to Zabina's sitting room, where the light's shining under the door. She's left her office for the night; even she doesn't sit at the computer day and night. I don't know if she does different work in the sitting room, or takes off time for her own interests, or...it's not the sort of thing I've asked about before. Hasn't been any of my business.

 _Do come inside, Leo,_ says Zabina's voice in my head, even as I hear the impossibly small disturbance of Celestial Tongues being performed inside the room.

I step inside. If the her office's all modern tech on classy antique furniture, this room's both more ornate and more severe. Dark woods and complicated upholstery, and a light fixture overhead that used to hold gas lamps instead of electric bulbs. Zabina lifts a hand in greeting from where she's seated, without getting up. A little more burgundy in the furniture fabric, and I'd expect a scotch commercial to take place in here.

Zabina doesn't drink scotch, that I've witnessed. What she does have is a glass of red wine, a brocade robe (probably antique), and a year-old tablet on her knee. Her gaze slips over me, thoughtful, and she waits for whatever had me standing outside her door at one in the morning. Asking questions outright would be too leading.

It's always a test.

"What did you do before the tech to wire up your house for surveillance?" I ask, and wish this outfit had pockets for my hands. Surely there are skirts with pockets.

"I had far more servants," she says. "They were always underfoot. A convenient state, for the way people would forget about their presence. Modern estates aren't built with so many discreet passages for servants, are they?"

"Not these days," I say. "Something of a failing when it comes to surveillance. I guess that's why someone had to invent cameras." I lift a hand, because my skirt continues to have no pockets. (It almost feels like being naked below the waist, and I don't like it. I'd rather have no underwear and jeans than this weird in-between state of underwear and skirt.) "I owe you Essence."

"Keep it," Zabina says. "Your vessel changes have some utility, and I don't anticipate needing ten Essence before dusk tomorrow."

There's a moment of silence where I can't come up with the words and she's not giving me an easy out, and I find that I am about ready to fall into either flight or parade rest when she says, "Would you like to sit down?"

I don't think she's phrased it that way to me before. But then, we're not in her office. Different rules for different places.

There's space on the chaise lounge beside her, but it doesn't seem a piece of furniture intended for two people. A chair at a ninety degree angle, another directly facing her and most of the way across the room. (The rug at her feet, which, like everything else in this room, is older than I am. At least I've got the tablet beat for maturity. But. No.) Rules and connotations, wherever I sit, or if I say _no thank you_ and stand in front of her. It's always a test.

I'm still in bare feet. I sit down on the table in front of her, and slide the wine bottle aside so that I don't jostle it with my knee when I pull my feet up as well. Perhaps I'm a little barbaric at heart. Can't be helped. As she will occasionally point out, I was raised by wolves, and I'm halfway to being American besides.

"I had been wondering," I say, "how many hooks you keep on me. But it's the sort of question it's rude to ask a Lilim, at the best of times. Besides, what would I do with the information? The nature of the Geas is that knowing it's coming doesn't help any with saying no."

"If all your questions are rhetorical," Zabina says, "it's difficult for me to give you any answers."

"Well," I say, hands in my lap, "I used to date a Balseraph. You get in the habit of not asking questions where you're not sure you'd believe the answer. Or where you'd be unhappy with a certain type of answer."

"Try me," Zabina says. She puts the tablet aside, beside her glass of wine. I do believe I have her attention, and isn't that what I wanted? I wouldn't have come downstairs otherwise.

"What percentage are there for security? Because it's a way to find me and control me. As opposed to the ones you leave in because...it's habit, or a way to win an argument."

"One to find you," Zabina says. "The rest for other reasons." She's unlikely to specify further if she hasn't yet. "If I have to Geas you to win arguments, I would consider that a symptom of a significant problem."

"I'll try to avoid that." I look down at my hands. The ones for this vessel are too small, and too smooth. The other vessel's acquired ragged fingernails and callouses that this one probably won't. "Back in Seattle, someone told me I was your type, but I'm pretty sure they just meant the vessel."

"How do you reach this conclusion?"

"Because I'm nothing like Giovanna," I say, "except for the ability to get passive-aggressive in constrained circumstances, and that's not something I think anyone finds particularly endearing."

"I already have Giovanna," Zabina says. "Why should I need two of her, as opposed to a diversified portfolio?"

When I look up from my hands, she's watching me. Waiting, and I suppose it's my move. This is the part where I ask a question or walk away or make a proposal or _something_ , and it was so much easier when I was Renegade and nothing could last.

"I need a distraction from what's in my head," I say, which is far more honest than I like. I'm doing an excellent job of keeping it out of the way, and just saying that makes it harder. "I can't do that with studying. Do you have any other work for me?"

She lays a hand on her knee. "Come here, won't you?"

I slide down from the table and I'm not sure I'd know where to interpret as _here_ , except that she offers me hand. Thus me at her knee turns into me between her knees, and me being a bundle of human-shaped body there that I don't know what to do with. She tucks a foot behind me, her robe slipping over my side.

"You could grow your hair out," she says, brushing it back from my forehead, and this turns into pulling me nearer to her. There is no way to sit _apart_ on a chaise lounge like this, and I give up on any sort of reserve--or grace--and let myself be pulled in nearer, halfway into her lap. "If you liked, but I suppose you don't."

"Not particularly. Not on either vessel."

"Be glad," she says, "that you aren't in an age and culture of wigs." Her punctuating kiss tastes like lipstick and wine tannins. "Shall I tell you how this goes?"

I suppose there's an unspoken corollary: would I prefer to only learn the rules when I break them? With Lanthano, I can see that being its own entertainment, but I don't think that's the preference for either of us. But she's _asked_ , instead of just telling me, because...it's not the office. It's her sitting room. Different place and a different way of dealing with each other. "Please," I say.

"Whenever you'd rather," she says, "we can stop. If you don't like what I choose, we can stop. If you break anything, we will stop." She slides cool fingers beneath the edge of my skirt, along my thigh. Might as well not be wearing anything when it comes to skirts, and I knew there was a reason I didn't like them, but here--well, it's not like I'd mind not wearing anything, either, so I'll cope.

"Stop and discuss?"

"No, Leo. We stop." She is perfectly serious, and not grim in the slightest. She might as well be explaining the principle of keystone arches. "It's not the end of the world. It's simply a boundary line."

And Lilim know from hard limits and loopholes and the precise wording of agreements. "Sure," I say, and wish I knew what to do with my hands.

But _she_ does. I can't understand how anyone does this alone, all lack of surprise and making every single decision and nothing but one person against their own self. Zabina takes my wrists and lays my hands to her hips, one by one, beneath her robe and resting half to the bare skin of her waist, half over the watermarked silk trousers she's wearing. Her hand stays between my thighs, sliding up more slowly than I'd like. "It's a lovely body," she says. "You should dress like this more often."

"It gives people the wrong idea," I say, and find that I would like to spread my knees. Can't, not when I'm caught between hers, but I can rest my head against her chest like that's a place I belong, and she doesn't object. "Or, I don't know, maybe the right idea, but not one I want to give everyone."

She slips her hand out from my thighs and up to my hip, under that damn skirt, and hooks her fingers over the waist of my underwear. "People think all sorts of things, and we don't mind them. What do you want from it?"

"It wasn't even made for me," I say. She has both her hands beneath my skirt, tugging my underwear away, and if I make that ridiculous piece of clothing just _go away_ , she'll stop. So I keep my hands on her hips, my head to her heart, my resonance locked inside me while it tries to chew its way out through my Discord. Not every part of me is entirely in agreement here.

"Theft, Leo. We take what wasn't made for us all the time." Zabina sounds so practical about this, it's better than if she were trying to sound reassuring. Of course we take what isn't ours. My partner always treated this vessel like he owned it, and he did, and I ran away with it anyway. Can he really blame me? (Of course he does.) I'm just doing what he taught me.

My supervisor has worked my underwear down to my knees, and leaves it there. I certainly feel like I'm under her close attention just now. Better to think about that, and not about my partner. Ex-partner. (The way Regan is my ex-girlfriend, and I still fell down on my knees for her the moment she asked me to. But then I betrayed her and left her to die, so how do I count that? Am I more loyal for sticking to the contract, or disloyal for not doing what she wanted?) I close my eyes and hold onto Zabina as lightly as I can, when I'd like to cling.

"You're thinking of other things," she says, and her hands come to rest on my shoulders. "What is it?"

"I don't have to tell the truth anymore," I say. "Which might be for the best."

"So give me an excuse."

"You would never do this in Stygia, where I look like myself."

"Leo," she says, and swallows some word that follows, "you never asked, there."

That doesn't tell me how it would turn out. She's not going to. It wouldn't be a test if she just told me what to do, would it? And maybe she hasn't made up her mind yet, either. Though she trusts me enough to try this on her antique furniture--there are, admittedly, not a lot of places in this house outside of my bedroom that don't have some, and I think my bedframe's a century old at that--which says something.

I'm asking now. Even if the thought of putting it out there that explicitly makes my stomach twist. (Damn you, Zhune, why can't I get you out of my head, a continent and half a year away?) "Would you--" (I don't know what. Hold me, fuck me, tell me what to do, tell me what you want, tell me what _I_ need, say something nice even if it's a lie?)

I have left that question unfinished for so long that it's more than a hesitation. Zabina sets her hands about my face, fingernails almost sharp where they rest on my cheeks, and kisses me again. This is why she's the Knight; she knows what the fuck to _do_.

"Sorry," I say.

She taps a finger over my lips. "Don't apologize," she says. "If you've done wrong, wouldn't I tell you?"

That's a compelling argument, given current evidence. "Seems likely."

"There you have it." She turns the two of us over together. Rough brocade across the backs of my calves and head, and the light dimmed by the way her robe hangs around me. She's braced on one hand, an elegant straight line from wrist to shoulder, as if she were the pillar of a canopy hung over me. "Are you comfortable?"

"I feel like there's too much clothing on, between the two of us."

"You might feel differently," Zabina said, "if you liked your own clothing."

"I like some of it," I say, and wonder if I ought to be doing something here. But she's looking thoughtful, and I'd rather not interrupt whatever that thought process is. "I just don't want people _looking_ at me, and--to be able to move quickly. If I have to."

"Magpie," Zabina says, in much the same tone she uses for her occasional _raised by wolves_ comments. All the same, it's as fond as any time--no, let's not think about him. "If you bolt, I'll take that as a request to stop." She brushes her fingers across the rim of one ear. The tiny talisman set there, come to think of it, which I nearly forget most days. It doesn't do much but make me a better liar, and that seems more of a Role-appropriate job. Besides, it's bright silver, and that's not ideal accessorizing when climbing things in the dark. "Ought I buy you more jewelry?"

"Would I have to wear it?"

"Only if you wanted to come with me to the events that require it." She traces my collarbone, finger slipping beneath my blouse and out again, when I'd like her to drop down on top of me entirely. "Nine tenths of the time, you would hang on my arm and look pretty."

"What's the other ten percent?"

"Veiled insults and larceny." She sets a hand between my legs, that damn skirt in the way, and pushes me back until I rest my head on the chaise lounge's one arm. "You could hang about looking sullen and pretty, as it's perfectly appropriate to your Role, but there'd be no arguing about clothing."

"I'll leave it to Giovanna. She'd already like to murder me in my sleep, if I actually slept, and I bet she _enjoys_ that kind of party."

"I wouldn't stand for unauthorized murder in the household," Zabina says. When she sits back, the robe she's wearing falls open at her chest. "Standards must be maintained." Worth noting that she's not _denying_ that I am Giovanna's least favorite person in the world.

"I'll try not to kill anyone without filling out the appropriate forms," I say. "Do we have murder forms? Like, in the company?"

"Not officially," Zabina says, which raises far more questions than it answers. She takes my hands and slips them behind my head, one by one, then waits for me to clasp them together there. "Stay there, won't you?"

"Sure?"

It would be in many ways easier and more satisfying if I could comply with whatever she wants. Turn off the part of my mind that's caught up in old history, ignore what's not _relevant_. There is no good reason for me to care what she might choose to do; she's not going to do anything Habbalite-like, which is the point at which I know I'm unhappy, so what do the details matter?

But when Zabina slips her hands up along my thighs and lowers her head I say, "I'd rather not," without even quite meaning to.

She pauses, her head a little lower than mine. "Would you like to stop?"

"No, only--not that." I'm stupidly grateful for having my hands behind my head, where they can grip each other without being visible. "Please."

"We can stop," Zabina says. Her fingers lie across my thighs, warmer than before. "Or we can continue with what I prefer. What do you want, Leo?"

Neither. She is not offering me a third choice on this one. The clever solution that is _something else entirely, please_ will only get me sent back to sit elsewhere, or out of the room entirely, and I don't know when I'd be back. (It would be nice if she wanted me back in here enough to compromise on this, but she's not just a coworker, she's my supervisor. "I can't," I say, which isn't exactly true, because this is something I have dealt with more times before than I exactly remember. I know how to cope.

I'd rather this not be coping. Is that so much to ask? I don't know how to explain without saying something embarrassing. More so than the way I'm pulling back into this corner, like that ever helped.

"We can stop," Zabina says. She's too polite to sound gentle about it, which I sort of appreciate.

Oh, hell. I don't want consideration and respect of my stupid issues, I want to do this--right, or the way the company does it, or the way I want it, I don't even know anymore. I don't want to walk back upstairs feeling like I failed another test. "I can't not think about him," I tell her, because, hey, let's be honest about the coping part. (If she were Ash, she would've figured this out already. He always knows exactly what to do, but he does cheat.) "That's all. Never mind."

"You need further distraction," she says. Her fingers turn fingernails in against my skin. Not sharp enough to even leave marks, only a reminder that unlike Yuliang, she doesn't file her nails down short. "I suppose it can't be German, or I'd be pausing constantly to correct you. French, then. To accept. The full conjugation, every mood and tense. Start in the usual place."

"You want me to _conjugate_. Verbs."

"One at a time," she says, and, yes, there's a hint of him in her serenity as she explains, but it's...not bad. It's just a little bit of a reminder. Everything would remind me of him right this moment. "French, Leo. You know it fairly well by now."

I close my eyes halfway, and shift languages. "I accept. You accept. It accepts..."

I would not say that I _twitch_ , exactly, at tongue to skin, but there's some reaction there. The feeling and what I'm not thinking about and my own voice, as I try to work my way through the words. Even when I can produce these in conversation, it's an effort to lay each variation on the word out in sequence. We would have accepted, you all would have accepted, they would have accepted... They would have accepted what happened, except for the circumstances at the time. He would have enjoyed the situation if he hadn't been so distracted by inconvenient memory.

"To obey," Zabina says. My body's cold where it's damp when she's not touching me. There's a breeze in here, from the central air kludged into the place decades ago. MAybe we'd be better off with an open window. Wouldn't that be more traditional? It would remind me less of motel rooms and hotel rooms--he cared about the difference--and rough white sheets gripped between my fingers.

She waits for me to start again.

"I obey," I say, and close my eyes all the way. This ceiling is too perfect to be interesting. "You obey, it obeys, we obey..."

I'm too present in my body to not be here at all, too locked into memory to be only in the present. I wonder what Regan would have done if she'd had longer to keep me in that rotting house when I first took a contract for the company. Not this. Not her style. Thrown me down on a mattress and told me what to do, more likely, and made me believe I wanted nothing better. It would have been true for a little while.

Never mind truth and lies. What's here is more important. I'm trying to be someone new, appropriate to time and place, to fit into this setup I agreed to. (That I asked for, let's not forget that. The Marquis wouldn't steal me until I asked her.) Whether this is teacher and student or supervisor and trainee or Lilim and Calabite or some combination of all three sets, this is where I am _now_. On my back, wearing too much clothing (and none of it to my taste), my underwear around my ankles and my supervisor's head under my skirt, between my legs.

Every time she stops touching me, I'm cold and want to curl away. "You forgot the imperatives," she says. "Then, to ask."

"Is this a theme?"

"French, Leo."

And she's good to the implied agreement; when I start speaking, she sets her tongue to me. (Exactly like Zhune. Nothing like him, I swear, she's not.) I ask, you ask, we all ask for something, and sometimes the hardest damn verb in the world isn't to act, but to receive. Giving up control without the convenient excuse of someone else taking it away from me.

 _"Is it so hard to ask for what you want?"_ I don't even remember what I answered, when I heard that from Penny. Maybe now I could tell him the truth. Yes, it is. I'm a demon, and that's not about asking, it's about taking. Theft as the purest form of the demonic nature, that _I want_ is followed by action without pause. Asking raises the possibility of someone saying no. (Never did get his pants off.) And here I am, overcome, working through my imperative forms. _Ask._

"To wait," Zabina says.

I _am_ waiting. But I can say it in French, crawling through the verb forms one at a time. These languages are all made for three, you and me and an unaddressed third, enough to make me wonder whether Yuliang would--oh, that's not a dangerous thought, but it'll distract me from my grammar, which is, as it turns out, a pretty good distraction from what I'm mostly not thinking about anymore, except for when I think about that. (Close your eyes, Leo, and don't imagine your partner.) Better to concentrate on pronunciation, the ways French swallows the ends of its verbs, the flick and slide of a tongue between my legs on this ridiculous vessel that other people always prefer.

Whatever clothes or vessel I'm wearing, they're still on me. It counts for something. Fabric beneath and around and across me, and the vessel that hooks into my soul. Does it matter that the body's a fiction and creation, compared to the one humans have as part of themselves, if it still feeds sensation into my mind? "Into my head," I could see, except that's part of the fiction. Nerves and blood are a metaphor, or the physical expression of something where the soul's all metaphor, I don't know which. Let's split the difference and call corporeal life a simile. I am here with this body _like_ a native of the this realm of existence, one foot slipping away from the underwear at my ankles to wrap around my supervisor's back, my hands behind my head like I can hold myself together, and, oh.

I've lost track of my verbs.

Didn't break anything, though. I'm usually pretty good about that these days.

Zabina smooths my skirt down over my thighs, and rearranges herself across me. To my side, more like, so that I'm beneath her arm and pressed up against her chest, my hands shivering still beneath my head.

"I don't remember which part I was at," I say.

"Present conditional, third person singular." She slides her hand up my blouse casually, like passing the salt or lifting a pen. "You don't have to continue with that one; I believe we have proof of concept."

"A demonstrative sample?"

"As it were." She kisses the side of my neck, damp and not particularly concerned about this. "Give me a hand." And when she has one of mine, the other's folded over her arm, like I'm holding her in place, or making the world's least effective gesture of protest. She rests her thumb across the base of one of my fingers. "You wouldn't wear a ring, if I put it here."

"It would feel strange." I roll onto my side, my cheek resting on the cushion of the chaise lounge. It would be something, as a human, to be able to fall asleep somewhere like this. No such luck for me. I suppose everything else makes up for that one celestial failing. "Especially when driving."

"Or a pendant, somewhere around here." She draws her fingers from my throat down to the place between my breasts. "Some other time, perhaps."

"When I'm more used to wearing girly things on this vessel?"

"When you're more accustomed to accepting gifts," Zabina says, "without expecting them to disappear."

We get through another round of conjugation, this night. And nothing disappears.


	49. In Which Promises Made Under The Influence Still Count For Something

One of the better parts of trips to Stygia is that Zabina doesn't insist on putting me in clothing that meets her standards before taking me somewhere. "Somewhere" is merely the office, but it seems I'm not required to dress quite as nicely for coworkers as I am for humans who might see me in her company on the corporeal. I'll take what I can get in this regard.

Or maybe it's just that with tattered wings like these there's not much to be done in the way of coordination. I haven't asked, for fear of losing the privilege.

When we arrive in the Heart room, there are already two Impudites standing about, neither of whom I've met. One of them, a tall woman with a dozen silver bracelets that _aren't_ Geases, flashes a smile at Zabina right off. "Either I'm not as early as I thought, or you have errands to run before the meeting."

"A little of each," Zabina says, and tells me, "This is Nhung." Her tone implies that I should remember the name, and I do, from the notes I've put together. One of the two Knights in the company that I haven't met before. "Shri you already know."

I duck my head toward the second Impudite, who looks nothing like her vessel. "I should've guessed from the pockets."

Shri lifts an arm to show off her coat all the better. "And what's a Thief without pockets?"

"Somewhat less suspicious," Zabina suggests dryly, and then falls into conversation with Nhung about logistical matters I have no interest in or experience with. Accounting continues to not be a strength of mine. This conversation carries the four of us out of the room and into the hallways, which seem a little busier than usual. When all the Knights are called in to talk with the Captain and Marquis, and each of them brings one or two people along, I suppose it adds up.

I acquire brief introductions to a portion of the Japan division: Kohaku, the Knight who handles that territory, is a quiet Shedite who looks like cotton candy hit an industrial tar plant, and the Impudite at its side has so little interest in me that the lack comes across as pointed. I display a general lack of interest in return, and after a few minutes of chatter--in which we are all entirely blocking the hall for a few souls trying to run errands without colliding with a demon--the group splits apart again. Everyone has reports to grab from appropriate Hell-side printers before the meeting itself.

"Who does Adrian bring?" I ask Zabina, as we reach her office.

"No one," she says. "He doesn't have any full-time subordinates, after all."

I'd like to know if we follow along because we're actually useful, or if it's because even in the company, it's a bit of a statement to _have_ another demon at heel as your explicit and obvious subordinate. But I'm not sure I want the answer, so I keep my mouth shut on this one.

Zabina's secretary stands up with a stack of folders as soon as we enter, and I can see that this trip is going to be all business, all the time. Not the fun kind where I get to blow things up or plan heists, either. The kind where people discuss investments and money laundering. I have _never_ found money laundering interesting.

"Leo," Zabina says, her attention locked to the folders now, "IT says your room is being set up. You may want to take a look before they're done. I expect you can keep yourself entertained in the office for a few hours after that."

So, my guess is that I'm here mostly for the sake of showing that she has a subordinate. Fair enough. "I think I've figured out how to check the messages on my phone," I say, and escape the office before she sends me away with a philosophy text.

I wonder if those rival philosophy debating clubs are still having fist-fights in that bar up on the side of a Stygian mountain. It'd be a bad idea to stop by and find out, but I wonder sometimes. The bartender was entertaining to talk to, and reasonably friendly.

But then, she's a friend of Zhune's. Bad idea.

When I reach my room, the door stands open, propped there by a brick. It's a pretty good brick; hand-sized, functional for building a decorative wall or heaving through an SUV window. Not the kind of thing I expect to find in a place so Corporate International as this.

I walk past the brick, and pause in the doorway to see what's happening in the room that's been assigned to me.

What I expected, I suppose, is that someone would shove a desk and computer in there, with a sturdy chair if I was lucky, and consider the rest my problem. I seem to have instead acquired three varieties of demon and as many human souls doing furniture rearrangement in my space. The little intern demonling, Otgonbayar, has a clipboard and is taking point (and visible delight) in ordering the human souls around as they set up bookcases. A whole series of bookcases just short of ceiling height, lined up back-to-back in a single row through the middle of the room.

The blueish Shedite with all the bat wings waves to me from a sprawl across half the desk that's been set up. Halyna, who I'm more used to seeing in text than in person. "We're almost done," she says. "Since you didn't leave any notes on how to set things up, we're just making it up."

"It's a perfectly straightforward layout," mutters the Impudite sitting at the desk--my desk, I suppose. "Artificial division into two spaces by means of furniture, separation of work and personal life, apparently that's a _thing_ , despite all the employee lounges." He's not a particularly large Impudite; my guess would be eight Forces, though the impression could tilt in either direction depending on how he chose to carry himself. If most of the Impudites here dress in a space between corporate formal and business casual, with occasional side trips into fashionable-but-relaxed, this one has decided to lunge into the realm of nerdy college student. I don't know why an Impudite would even wear a hoody; they have to cut slits for horns as well as wings. And the wrap-around sunglasses inside are just odd.

"There's comfortable furniture in the back," Halyna says, oozing off the desk toward me. She stops at my side, gesturing with a series of wings. (Being a Shedite means not running out of hands just four pointing motions in.) "Work space is here, that's tech storage, the bookshelves are obvious, and then on the other side's some chairs and futon and a table, for when you want to have company. Oh, and that's a wardrobe, if that wasn't clear."

"What's tech storage for?" I ask, and move a step aside so that Otgonbayar can lead her little parade of souls back out of the office, having finished with the furniture.

"Storing _tech_ ," says the Impudite. He springs up from the desk chair in one jerky motion. "See, monitor and keyboard and mouse are all separate, here's the relay, the computer itself is in this storage unit _here_ , it all syncs wirelessly. You want to type for more than four hours at a stretch, you swap the keyboard and mouse for the ones on the top shelf of the tech storage unit. Otherwise, use them until they break, move them to the _bottom_ shelf, secondary replacements are in the middle and move up to the top, then you send an email to IT and we send someone around to take the broken pieces and add new ones. Got it?"

"I said you'd be fine with a mouse," Halyna says, "since you didn't seem particularly attached to touchpads instead, and people who care usually mention it." She extends a wing towards the Impudite. "This is Artem, but most people just call him IT."

"You're on the newest stable OS," he says. "If it gives you an update prompt, _don't click it_. We'll update you centrally when we're sure the patch isn't going to explode or do that thing with the bees."

"The bees were only once," Halyna says, "but they sort of left an impression."

"Bees," I say.

"Well," says the Shedite, with a rippling shrug, "they weren't literal bees. Not like bees you get on the corporeal. They were just sort of...bee-like."

"And we're not doing that again!" Artem who is IT who is a twitchy little Impudite, I've figured that much out pretty easily, is insistent on this point. "Do you need a TV?"

"...no?"

"There are plenty of consoles in the lounges," Halyna says, "with wireless controllers, so if you want to play anything, that's a decent place for it." She looks hopeful on this point. "Like, if you were bored right now? We just got the translation on the latest Metal Gear Solid."

"There is no point in playing a game if you're not going to use the original language," Artem snaps. "Who doesn't know Japanese, anyway?"

"I like the Helltongue voice actors better," Halyna says, entirely unruffled. "Did you want to play?"

"I have to check for viruses," Artem mutters, and darts out the door, wings folded across his back and shoulders hunched. He does stop to grab the brick on the way.

Halyna turns a wry expression towards me with various face-like pieces when the door swings shut. "Don't hold it against him," she says. "He's like that with everyone."

"I can see why they keep him in IT," I say, and sit down in the desk chair he's vacated. It's suspiciously comfortable. Things in Hell aren't supposed to be _comfortable_. That only happens when people are trying to lure you into a false sense of security, and who can feel secure about any damn thing while in Hell?

"He's good at it," Halyna says. "Like, _really_ good. And he's actually better than he used to be." She elbows her way up onto my desk again. "He likes you. He wouldn't say anything that wasn't about work, otherwise."

"I'm not actually familiar with opinions about video game languages as a sign of affection," I say. "Besides, I just met him."

"Sure, but he's heard about you. And he has a thing for Calabim, too. Who around here doesn't?" Halyna laughs at that, not entirely comfortably. "He has strong opinions about software and video games, and he doesn't like bright lights, but...really, he's a sweetheart. He'll do anything you ask, so long as the lights are off. You just need to tell him what to do."

"Ah," I say, for lack of a better response. "I suppose that works for him."

"Oh, he's desperate for corporeal work," Halyna says, "mostly to get to the internet, but he's never going to get it if he doesn't work past some of these things. You can't wear sunglasses all the time in a _Role_ , not a good deep one that's useful to the company and traveling every three days. But that's how it works, isn't it? No one ends up an employee at this company because they were all happy and well-adjusted where they were before. Everyone finds a niche, but it's not always what they might like best. Still, it works. We can't just all get what we want best. Someone has to do the paperwork." She pauses a moment. "Come to think of it, there's one person who _does_ like the paperwork, but there's a lot more than one person's worth to do."

"And do you like where you ended up in the company?" It's a personal question, but she's just about asking me to say it out loud.

"Sure," she says. "I love where I am. Especially when I think about how it could've gone instead. Do you want to come play Metal Gear Solid?"

"Not in the slightest," I say. "But thanks for the offer."

"It's all stealthy," she says, a little wistful, but makes her way out. She's picked up the social skills Artem hasn't, and knows how to not overstay her welcome.

I check behind the bookshelves, and find two thirds of the room are devoted to personal space. I've acquired the same futon Lanthano has--another color, so probably not the _same_ one--and assorted other furniture that implies I might want to have four people over for beer and poker and maybe sex. Or, I don't know, trying on clothing. I don't quite dare open the wardrobe. It should be empty.

The books Yuliang bought for me, in the first few days after I came to the company, have been arranged on one shelf. The others are bare. This place looks like it's waiting for someone to arrive, even though I'm already here. It expects...possessions. The sort of things people keep in a space they expect to return to regularly, and to keep relatively secure.

How can they _stand_ it? Pretending that things are secure and lasting. They all know better. They all know better vividly and recently; Daosheng's death left scars all through the company, and she was a fucking _Marquis_. Anyone can disappear on you. Leave you or betray you or just plain die on you. C is the only one around here who seems to understand that, and she's a contractor for a reason, I guess. The person you counted on the most can decide to give up and walk away.

Sometimes you're that person. And now that I've been the person to break and run this many times, I don't know how the hell they can trust me. But they keep walking around building up their own rooms and making friends and talking about how they fit into the company structure, like it's all going to be there tomorrow. Every last bit of it.

No wonder Valentin fell apart.

I check the time, which has not advanced much since I sat down, and leave that room. I'll figure out how to make it look lived-in later. Some people will worry until then, and... I don't want to make Lanthano worry, for one. Or Yuliang, who would probably make it an excuse to take me shopping. It shouldn't be that hard to find things I like to put on the shelves. I knew how to do that when I lived on the corporeal with a real Role, that one time.

I remember packing up my room after the last round of finals, and wondering what the new place would look like. It seemed important at the time.

Never mind this place. It'll grow on me, the way the room at Zabina's place has. (Not so much the room, but the windowsill and the tree just outside it.) I don't have to think it'll last forever to be willing to fill it out.

And if I lose it all tomorrow, well, it won't be the first time.

I leave my room and head out through the halls. I don't lock my door behind me, because it seems a bit meaningless in a company of Thieves. People will respect my space or they won't. Nothing in there that I care about anyway. Nothing here in Hell that I care much about, that I can think of. Zabina's--well, she's here right now, but she's not stationed in Stygia. It's not the same thing. And I know if Lanthano were around, he'd have said hello by now.

If Lanthano were around, I'd be making very different plans for the next few hours.

I stop in front of Valentin's door, and knock before I can change my mind. Or, hell, before anyone can see me. I'd rather not have some things hit the company gossip circuit, if it's possible for anything to occur in this place and stay out of it.

The door opens, and they stare at me, head tilted to one side. Dressed exactly as when I saw them last; it's enough to make my pulse jump.

"Come inside," they say, "if you like."

_Like_ is not the word for it, but I step into their room all the same. I am unsurprised by their choice of minimalist furniture; the photographs on the walls are less what I expected. Not cozy me-and-my-friends sort of shots, or even landscapes, but the kind of peculiar framing and subject matter that says Art with a capital letter and a gallery showing. Every damn one of those pictures that I see for long enough to form an impression of is...unsettling. Even if I can't place why. A close-up for a sprig of purple flowers on the ground, the bare back of a man sitting on a bed, three fingers clamped on the edge of a door. Maybe it's not all that surprising after all.

"You keep forgetting that you have wings," Valentin says. They sit down on the back of a couch, the perfectly clean soles of their white boots scraping against the sleek black couch itself. "Some combination of Bound and the percentage of your life you've spent on the corporeal, I suppose. Time alone won't do that to a demon." They pat the back of the couch beside where they sit, an invitation I am not about to take. "Do you not like this form?"

"The funny thing," I say, "is that from the outside, not being able to respect social conventions and not bothering to look exactly the same. Now, I realize that the utilitarians don't much care, but I actually feel that the difference is important." I shove my hands in the pockets of this one jacket that won't break on me. "So here's the rule. Don't touch me, and don't resonate me."

Valentin smiles, sunny as the days you don't get in Hell. "Or what?"

"There is no 'or what'," I say. "That's just the line I happen to be drawing. I'm sort of curious as to whether you think you can respect it or not, but not enough to ask, because I've heard too many rounds of 'I can quit any time I want to, I just don't want to' from other people to believe it anymore. The point is that you're explicitly informed of what I prefer. However you choose to take it."

"Here I took you as more of a deontologist," Valentin says. They lean forward, hands on their knees. "Will you sit down, or would you rather hover by the door all day? It's not locked."

I take a seat in one of the chairs. It's not particularly comfortable, not least of which because it's really designed for a more human body, with no allowance for these damn wings. Which I am, I suppose, fine with. Much like vessels, it's not like anyone asked me for a preference. "Deontology is more Zabina's gig."

"Did you pick up the terminology from her? Or in that college?" If I did not know better, I'd say they were pleasantly, mildly curious. A conversation between coworkers, killing a few hours while the boss is in a meeting.

"Mostly from a club in Stygia. There's this bar on the side of a mountain, in this village that looks like it's about to suffer a vampire attack at any minute. They have mediocre beer and a lot of arguing philosophers, or did a few years ago. Mostly Factions people. You should stop by some time."

Valentin tilts their head further to the side, until their fluffy hair tilts itself over as well, a white cascade. "Here people had me wondering if you'd be all upset."

In an odd way, it's like talking to a small child. I have no doubt Valentin is as smart as me, or more so, but the leaps of their conversation have a logic of their own. The connections just aren't being expressed. "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I'd expected a little more self-restraint from a coworker. But it's like expecting the baby Magpies not to make a try on my wallet, isn't it? They want to prove they can do something, even if they know it's a bad idea."

"You want me to ask why you came," Valentin says. "Why did you come to see me, Leo?"

"Didn't you ask me? Twice."

"A promise made under duress doesn't count for anyone but Lilim and the Game," Valentin says. "They are, of course, deontologists, at least in what they give lip service to. So did you not find the duress so very terrible, or did you have another reason?"

If I said _I felt sorry for you_ they'd be offended, or simply not believe me. It's almost enough to make me say it out loud. What I choose instead is equally true: "I met Artem."

Valentin gestures at me to continue, their smile sweet as ever, except around the edges.

"You're the one who keeps telling me what I really mean, or what I'm about to say, Valentin. So why don't you figure that one out?"

I sit back and check the messages on my phone while I wait for the Impudite to work that one through. Zabina wants to know if I have anything back on the corporeal that urgently requires my presence today, which suggests a task here in Stygia if the answer is no. But the answer is, for better or worse, no.

"It doesn't work," Valentin says. "Making yourself more reliable doesn't change the impermanence of the world around you. It doesn't work the other way, either, except in the prosaic literal sense of your ability to destroy matter. The world is, and then it isn't."

"It's still here," I say, and rap my knuckles across the back of my chair. "At least in part. Or are you telling me this isn't real? I can take this apart into dust, but that's still something that _was_ a chair."

"It's not unreal," Valentin says, suddenly impatient, as if I've misunderstood something they've been explaining to me for hours. "It's an illusion. That's different."

"I know a Balseraph who'd agree. But so what?"

Valentin tilts his head right back until they're sitting up straight. "You can't have what you want, that's what," they say.

"So it's an illusion. So wanting is meaningless and having is temporary. So what? We believe in those things, that they matter in some way, or the world doesn't _work_. Money's a group fiction, _law_ is even more so, but we need both of them for Theft to have any meaning or power as a Word. You can't break trust until there's an expectation of fidelity in the first place." I want a beer, or someone I know better sitting beside me. Can't get either in here. "I said I'd come here, and I did. One more bit of proof to shore up the illusion that anything matters."

"She would've liked you," Valentin says. They slip off the couch, and come to perch on the side table directly by my chair. (I can't help but think of myself sitting on the coffee table in front of Zabina, the other night.) "We could've stolen you so much faster." They lean in toward me, a hand to the back of the chair right over the place where my wing rests. "She finds what makes you trust and swallows it down. Like you're a magnet pointed towards her center."

And all the company's a set of compasses swinging wildly, having lost their north. It's a wonder--or a testament to some kind of skill I can't understand--that Chaixin keeps them together. Enough that they work and live and _recruit_ , and look like they've got everything together. When you're looking in from the outside. (Sometimes I miss Trey, though I would never tell Lanthano that. Trey wasn't real, but he wasn't hurt, either.) Now I'm on the inside and I can see the cracks they've painted over.

"It's a bit late for that," I say, which is maybe not the most sensitive way of phrasing things, but I don't think Valentin cares much about delicate phrasing. That said, I decide against the _work with the Marquis you have, not the Marquis you'd like_ comment as a bit much. It wouldn't do to imply that I'm less than comfortable with the boss I've promised to serve.

"She could steal you in three days," Valentin says. They lean in so near to me that their hair almost touches my face, and their eyes are enormous when directed at me. "You wouldn't even have to ask."

"I swear," I say, "I've known second-grade children with better respect for personal boundaries than you have."

Their smile's all sunlight again. "I'm not touching you."

"Yes, they usually said that too."

"Three days," Valentin says. "By the third day she'd have you laid across a desk and begging for more. How long did it take you to realize you should've taken what Chaixin offered, the first time she offered it?"

"Not the first time," I say. "The second time, though. That probably would've been a good call."

"You're honest in all the wrong places," Valentin says. That should feel like an insult, and yet it doesn't, coming from them. Trying to interpret what this Impudite says takes more work than I'm used to in a conversation. They sit back, and hold out a hand. "Do you want to come see my engravings? Some of them must have buildings."

"Sounds slightly more fun than watching Halyna play a video game, but also distinctly more euphemistic, so I'm going to pass."

"You should say yes," Valentin says. "You have no idea how much it would annoy Adrian."

"More tempted than before, but _no_."

"See, just like that," Valentin says, tracing an outline in the air with one finger. "You've forgotten about your wings again, so they go reflexive. You can't lie properly in Hell, not while you do that."

"Nonsense," I say. "I lie quite well, thank you very much, when I'm comfortable." And it's time for me to stand up and make my exit before we test that division, _can't_ versus _won't_ , a little too closely.

"You should let me decorate your office," Valentin says, curling their feet beneath them like a cat. They settle into the chair I just left as if it's part of the table, looking far too at home in furniture that uncomfortable. "I'm so bored."

"My sympathies," I say, "but not enough of them to let you add things to my space."

"You'd find it so much more exciting," Valentin says, and shows their pointiest teeth in a smile.

"True," I say, and leave the room before I can make any serious mistakes. That I'm aware of.

That didn't go so badly. It'd be nice to think this means I'm getting used to this place, but it's more likely that the local breaking points are, to mix a metaphor, rubbing off on me.


	50. An Interlude, In Which No One Else Sees The Holes In The Floor

You have spent the last two hours being exactly where Erzebet wants you to be. This is no more or less tedious than any of the other places you might be in the company's territory. Halyna has spent this time playing a game even you find incomprehensible in an employee lounge, while debating its merits with someone from the Japan division. You ought to know this Impudite's name--in fact, you're quite certain that you do--but you can't find it in yourself to care enough to remember the detail right now.

Your coat is immaculate.

The intern is terrified of you when it comes and goes, delivering messages and beverages. The humans are terrified of you because the intern is. This is the same as it was yesterday, and the week before, and the year before, and you refuse to count up the years during which this has been true.

Erzebet does not expect you to pretend you are being socialized. Erzebet expects you to show that you can inhabit the same space as coworkers while being on some version of good behavior that doesn't violate handbook guidelines, and only occasionally smashes through the unwritten rules of employee behavior. You have become quite skilled at smiling in the direction of people as they enter the room.

If Lanthano were here, he would avoid your gaze. That almost makes him interesting again, except for how that never changes. Every time you see him he will avoid you, as if your hands are still dirty. There is no good reason for him to hold that against you.

He called for Chaixin, and she came, right like that. He could just call, and she _arrived_. She took you away and sat you down--no, you should be precise. You are standing in front of a sink with your hands in the water. It's not as if you killed a human. You have been dissonance-free for centuries. There is nothing offensive in a human, no reason to pluck it apart, any more than there's a reason to kick gelatin. What is under your fingernails has nothing human in it. 

These people don't understand, sometimes, what humanity means. Never mind Words, the damned and the blessed, the taste of Essence between your lips. Humans created another reality, or at least colonized it; who else can say that but God and the Archangels? (A few Demon Princes, who were Archangels once. And what have they made in the aeons since?) Never mind the variety of bodies and souls; the value of a human lies in its mind. You have something under your fingernails that never would have dreamed up an ethereal. Meaningless.

Chaixin takes your hands from the sink.

You can regret the inconvenience that you caused her.

Erzebet asked you to wait here. She's checked the security cameras at least twice by now. You leave the employee lounge, while Halyna explains to that Impudite who does not matter what's going on in a cutsceen on the television. Betrayal and revelation. (Why isn't betrayal a Prince? Perhaps because no one could serve them. But people manage to serve Death, and expect to live through it. You've never understood that.) The two primary ingredients of plot twists, best layered.

Here is the revelation: Adrian betrayed you. Here is the twist: Adrian feels betrayed. You could laugh, some days. Generally you don't. Laughing and crying are both reasons for Erzebet to worry, and when she worries your leash gets so very short.

You stood in the hallway outside his office door, wondering. Your throat ached as if there were something around it, but there was nothing. The collar of your coat exactly in place. Your cuffs were perfect. You glanced down at your boots, to be sure, and they were _perfect_. The failure had clearly been on his part, not yours.

You checked the time on your phone, which has been upgraded three times since you were last on the corporeal. There had been a time when you didn't care what sort of phone you carried in Stygia, because the service was unreliable outside the company, and in home territory, who needed to call anyone? But that was before, and you were not particularly fond of dwelling on before. The sun in your hair and on your hands, the pets and the places and that _taste_.

You leaned against the wall, watching down the hallway, and let yourself remember the taste of a hundred different hosts. Hands and thighs, your fingers in dark hair and his in yours. You have him pinned down and glaring, the middle of an argument. And when he says, "Stop looking at me like that," you snap a picture.

"Work, work, work, Adrian."

"Someone has to get it done." He has found a host you've never seen before. You know all his pets, inside and out, and sometimes you visit them when he's not around. See how they're doing, see how they taste without him inside. This one's too new to be a pet, maybe too sweet for that. Adrian likes a lemon bite to the people he keeps. "Have you ever considered the evidence trail you leave--"

"Hush," you say, and wave the photograph in the air until it comes through clear. The lighting's off; you'll have to adjust the blinds the next time he stops by at this time of day. "Now look at this and tell me that we need to get to work."

Adrian glares. You take another picture.

If you walk into your room right now there won't be one picture of him. Not one.

Erzebet pulled you down the hallway. You weren't exactly fighting. You simply weren't helping. "I don't care," she said, "if you _want_ to do this or not, but it's necessary. And you could be more cooperative."

You didn't say anything. Words didn't make it as far as your mouth in any sort of order. You would try to say _Everything is broken and nothing will ever be the same and I don't understand why I'm alive_ and instead you would say something inconsequential that didn't get the message across. Or maybe you said exactly the words you meant to, every word precise and true, and they didn't understand.

Of course, everyone knew Helltongue was a slippery language. So you weren't sure who to blame for that one.

Erzebet pulled you up from where you were sitting. "If you don't keep moving," she said, nose to nose with you, her eyes the wrong color entirely, "you will become dissonant. If you become dissonant, you will be less valuable to the company. You can't let this become a habit."

"I'm so bored," you said.

"I don't care," she said. She had an arm around your waist, and she walked you forward. One pointless step after another. "What will Chaixin think, if you start falling into dissonance? What would the Boss think? A Thief who can't keep moving is a liability."

"There are holes in the floor," you said, but she didn't understand.

You pulled out your phone and sent her a text. _The lounge was boring. I'd rather go out._

Then you walk around the corner. Just out of sight of Adrian's door. Not out of earshot, though. You have always been very good at tracking people down.

There's a mist of sound all the way through the halls when the meeting lets out. All the little Knights collecting their little minions, sniffing them over to make sure no one has been nibbled on by the wrong person. You are entirely able to _not touch_ when it's a good idea to keep your teeth to yourself.

Who's the loneliest little Knight? The one who returns to his office alone, no minions, no companions, no chattering about _we should do lunch_ and _next time I'm in Tokyo_ and _what about Paris?_ and _did I tell you what happened on Friday_. He wants to be Saint Sebastian, reclining in the arms of the angels. A few arrows are nothing, not to the chest or throat, if he lies in her lap.

Well he can't. You can't. You are _dwelling_ on things, Valentin. Has that ever helped once?

Imagine if you could find every one of those Forces and take them to the right person and ask

Stop it, Valentin.

You lick the front of your teeth and wait to hear his door open. To hear his door close. That final click that he means as a message, except there's no one standing in the hallway to hear it.

You won't walk in there just like that. There's protocol to this.

You text him first. He's blocked your number. Protocol has, nonetheless, been served.

The door swings open like it was waiting for you.

"Hello, Adrian," you say.

They are all the insides of a person on the outside, and they are only good at lying when they're wearing another body. Just like that poor little Calabite, with his wings saying everything his face hasn't already expressed, hands that grip as if it's the only way not to move. Their taste and touch and sight and scent belong to you in a way nothing small and unimportant could. They broke first. Don't they even remember? They would speak to you if they didn't remember, if they had any way of forgetting besides shoving it all into your lap, a broken body to carry while they race ahead.

Oh, but they would like so much to be singular. He is already calling Erzebet, he is refusing to meet your gaze, he is locked for an instant into the present progressive while you are there and he is there and the two of you together were such a good team, almost like the Marquises were. One favorite to each, one to each arm, and he doesn't even appreciate it, that the one who loved him best is still there.

Let's stay here for an instant. It's the wrong instant, but let's wait. A breath in and out, then _hold_ and we can stop breathing a while.

You're never going to get that. Time moves on with or without you, and if you try to ignore it, you'll find yourself out of place again. Somewhere you decided to go when you weren't paying attention. (It's not like being an addict. The metaphor is ridiculous. It's not that you say _I can stop any time I want,_ it's that the you who resolves one thing might not be the you who carries through, or decides against it.) You are kneeling on Adrian's desk, hands gripping the edges, while he pulls away from you.

You are entirely in the present. This is the present, because the past held illusions you can no longer pretend to see. Your eyes crossed and the floating picture dissolved into scrambled colored lines on a page again. In a minute Erzebet will be here to talk about territory and lines and doors again, things you understand perfectly well and have decided (it is always a decision, no excuses) to ignore. This is your one chance to say what has to be said, before they start watching you again when he's around. Every word has to be perfect.

"It doesn't matter," you tell him, so close you could kiss. "You don't know how anymore, not without her, so I could say it exactly as I should and you still wouldn't believe me."

"Go away, Valentin," he says. "I'm too busy to deal with the crazy today."

"She's not coming back," you say. You're still there. You are still there, right in front of him, so close he has to _try_ to not touch, when any touch at all would be the easiest thing in the world. Easier than not. You are right there.

"Get out."

You sit back on your heels.

It didn't matter what you said. He never would have understood. You have all these words, the kind that make sense when they're marked up properly in the right colors and strung on the line in the right order, the kind that can become powerful if they're embedded in someone, so it's not your fault that he didn't listen.

You set your perfect boots, so clean because all this place is so clean, on the floor, and you told him, "I know what you want." You were a little pleased--a small and petty pleasure--when he didn't understand at first. You had always been smarter than him, quicker on the uptake, and that hadn't changed yet. You said to him, "You won't get it. He's attached here now. But all the same, how would it help? You'd only feel worse if he made it there and you were still here."

"Get _out_ ," Adrian said.

"Don't shout," you told him. "It's unbecoming."

You left just before Erzebet arrived. It wasn't as if you were worried. Adrian would never hurt another employee. Not even you.


	51. In Which We Go Shopping

Yuliang swans into my office with a pair of sunglasses on, and offers me another set. "Guess what we're doing!"

I don't actually mind an excuse to stop staring at the monitor. The Vapulan idea of an email-handling program should be taken outside and shot. "Fashion show?"

"Great idea, but I prefer to attend those. And no." She spins my chair around. "We're going to the mall."

There is nothing particularly appealing about this statement, but nothing horrifying, either. I drop the sunglasses into a jacket pocket. "Okay?"

"Yes, and I checked with Zabina, and we have the paperwork and _everything_. You know, usually other people do all this work! But I was down here anyway, because of having some reports to deliver for the whole meeting--I am _so_ glad I don't have to sit through the whole meeting, aren't you? They're going to be hours yet, it's taking forever, Adrian has questions about abso _lute_ ly everything."

It would be impolitic to point out just how much Yuliang wanted that distinction Zabina got instead. "So we're going to the mall."

"Mmhmm." She clasps her hands behind her back, beaming down at me. It's a little worrisome when she has those sunglasses on. A shade of green, and she'd look exceedingly Lilim. "It'll be fun."

I take half a second to try to work out what, exactly, she's not telling me. "Since when does Stygia have malls?"

"You don't have anything against visiting Shal-Mari, right? I mean, Lanthano has that whole _thing_ about it, or he'd get this job, but you've never said that it's a no go." I think she's trying to give me big eyes through the sunglasses. "It'll be _fun_ , we'll go to the kinds of stores you like."

"I'm...not really big on malls, actually." Though if Zabina's already signed me up for this trip--and with Yuliang, no less, though I think the rivalry only continues on the one side, now that Zabina's a Knight--there's probably no backing out of it. "It's like shopping, but more so."

"You'll have _fun_ , I swear." Yuliang holds out her hands to me. "C'mon! Besides, all the passports are made out already, and it's not like I can go alone. No one goes as far as Shal-Mari _alone_ , it's against policy."

I could make a fuss about this, but I'm saving my brat points for arguments I care more about. And there's nothing wrong with Shal-Mari, is there? It has millions upon millions of inhabitants, and the chances of me running into anyone I've met before is...miniscule. At best. "Is this the sort of trip to the mall where you're actually doing a hand-off with a contact and need backup in case something goes wrong?"

"Mm, maybe," Yuliang says. She takes my hands when I finally give them over, and pulls me up from my chair. "Easier if you don't know the details. Almost definitely no one shooting, this time. It's just a nice shopping trip. I'd even take Guo along, except that we don't have a passport for him yet."

"Is he here?" I've never seen him in the offices, nor do I know what he looks like. Of course, I'd know him around here in an instant, just from the way he moves.

"Nah, or he'd be here already. You know, he just about _worships_ the ground you walk on. Not like with Chaixin, but you should hear him talk about you." Yuliang pulls me right out of the office. "You've got your phone? Great, and I'll pick up the paperwork on the way out, we have sunglasses, it's all good. Don't worry, we'll ship back anything we buy. There are some decent courier services these days, and it is _so_ not worth it to cart what you buy there through customs yourself. Like, it's not like anyone in Stygia _cares_ what you bring in, not with the way the economy works here, but the Game acts like it's this whole _thing_ about trade across the borders. They just like to regulate it because it's made of physical objects moving around, and those are the easiest to write stupid rules for."

"As opposed to the sensible rules they write for elsewhere."

"No such thing," Yuliang says, directing me from one turn to the next until we're standing in front of a particular door marked with a particular name. I don't know a damn thing about Vuokko, except what Guo's notes told me. _A nice Impudite. Good with paperwork._ She hasn't come up in company gossip (which I am admittedly a few steps outside of, between living on the corporeal and not really talking regularly with anyone but Zabina, who doesn't gossip, and Lanthano, who says only pleasant things about coworkers without prompting) in any other sense. A good solid employee.

I am no longer sure what constitutes _a good solid employee_ in this company. We're all different types of cracked here, broken creatures stitched and taped and stapled back together until we could keep functioning. I'm not even sure where I rank on the scale of functioning, anymore. I used to think I was near the bottom, considering Guo to be down there with me. Now that I've met Artem and Valentin, and heard of Itimad, who is so broken no one even suggests I'll ever meet her... Well. I just don't know.

It's not so much a refuge or a company as a recovery ward. A halfway house. An asylum, in the older sense, before _insane_ became part of the phrase, though that's not entirely inapt either. 

The Impudite who opens the door at Yuliang's knock is the sort of demon who doesn't believe in dress codes, or doesn't care. She's dressed almost exactly like I am, but with no jacket and a tie. "Everything's good to go," she says, and holds out a folder. (To Yuliang, not to me.) "Your currency's all in Bits, since they're trading the highest this week on what we have a surplus of."

Yuliang shakes an envelope out of the folder, and holds it up to the light. "I thought the VapuCredits were rising?"

"Rising, sure, but it's one of those obvious bubbles, especially with the rumors already starting about counterfeits. We're not even bothering to look into the tech." Vuokko shrugs, a gesture more visible in her wings than shoulders with the layers of jacket she's wearing. "Besides, they're pushing it so hard that you can trade Essence directly on any street corner at a standard rate, so there's no reason to carry it _into_ Shal-Mari. But if you're heading to a place that'll only take that, I can pull you some from reserves."

"No, it's fine. I'm full up, and I think Leo is--yes? good--so we've got flex there." Yuliang leans in to kiss the other Impudite quickly on the forehead. "I'm not complaining, just checking! Luck with the paperwork and all."

"It's not luck," Vuokko says. "Nice to meet you," she adds in my direction, perfunctory and polite.

"Same," I say. Maybe I could have said more, but Yuliang's pulling me away, with sincere, vague thanks floating back down the hall. Even within the company, not everyone is _friends_. There's a difference between being able to get along with people, on a professional level, and caring particularly for them.

So it's no wonder everyone knows Lanthano. He projects caring. At everyone, as if we all matter. Even in a company as warm and fuzzy as this one, that...matters. Distinguishes. He is a rare sort of Impudite. (It's enough to make me wonder.)

(It's not useful to wonder. If he didn't really like me--what difference would it make? Isn't the reality what we do, not why we do it?)

"We'll have fun," Yuliang says. Not so much reassuring as drawing the boundaries. What we will do in Shal-Mari will be fun, because she's decided it will be so.

"Of course," I say, and wonder how long this will all take.

#

We have found a border crossing other than the one Henry and I tried to cross once, but not particularly different in its details. Border guards checking paperwork, bars across the way, a single gate to pass through in each direction. We have had a perfectly undramatic journey to this point. All you have to do is walk out of the offices, down a few streets, and then along a winding path that moves from the mountainside to the caves in short order. It is as if Stygia has changed itself to accommodate different expectations. Zhune and Henry expect every route to be complicated and full of dangers, and so it is. Yuliang expects this place to be a poorly marked but logical series of roads, and so...it is.

Of course, I always suspected Henry was taking me through the back ways to make a point.

Yuliang doesn't take a lot of time pointing out the scenery. She talks to me about employees, and about her human friends, and about some demons she knows on the corporeal. Apparently humans are easy to make friends with--"Just listen to them talk about themselves, then pretend you're interested in whatever they care about, and in them"--and demons are nearly as simple, once you know the Band and Word. (Was I that simple, yet another Calabite of Theft? I won't ask.) She gets in tiny, indirect digs about Zabina here and there. Everything within plausible deniability. I'm not going to call her on it.

"Shal-Mari is the best place in Hell to visit," Yuliang explains to me, as the line creeps forward toward the customs agents. "You wouldn't want to _live_ there, it's just terrible. The sexy kind of terrible. Like Las Vegas, right? Have you ever been to Las Vegas?"

"A few times," I say. "Never seemed like a good idea to linger." The place is full of Gamesters, and at least one Game Tether. Sometimes I wonder if the whole city counts for that, aside from the bits of Lust on the fringes. But Tethers have their own strange internal logic.

"We should go there some time. It's fun. Have you been back to the States recently? Because Vegas is so different from how it was in the sixties. Or back in the eighties! You should've seen it then. There was this one trip--" She stops as the Shedite in front of us is unceremoniously flung a dozen meters back down the line. "Oo, bad passport."

"I thought they arrested you for that," I say.

"Not unless they have a quota. They'd run out of room to put people, and personnel to guard them, if they arrested everyone with bad paperwork. But that must've been, like, _personally_ insulting on a professional level. A Gamester can respect a good forgery, you know? It's the bad ones they get annoyed at." She loops her arm through mine, and draws me forward a few steps. There's an irate Calabite in front of us, and then it'll be our turn to deal with the customs Djinn. "I think they pulled your photo from one of the security cams, because it's not great. But that's okay. They always get so _weird_ about good photos at the border. Even my photo isn't--well, it's nothing I would post back home, you know?"

"Mmhmm," I say, and wonder how _back home_ is always Stygia when we're on the corporeal, and the corporeal when we're here. Maybe it's easier to remember the good parts of a place, and let the annoying little details (mandatory meals or the lack of sunshine, as the case may be) fade away while distant.

"You should start a blog," Yuliang says, and we step up to the counter. The Djinn checking paperwork directs three eyestalks toward us. "Hel _lo_! We have day-passes to Shal-Mari."

The Djinn inspects the two passports offered over. (Yuliang has not made the classic mistake of letting go of them.) She thumbs through a few pages, then runs a scanner over them. "You need a form," she says, shoving the passports back. "Don't have the visa waiver."

Yuliang whips out two sheets of paper, and lays them down on the counter.

The Djinn's eyestalks bend down towards the forms. "Isn't notarized by an official Game notary."

"We have a waiver for that," Yuliang chirps, and holds out a laminated card. "See? Licensed Stygian consul form."

The Djinn snatches the card away, and scans it. There is a happy little beep from the scanner. "Licensed for notaries," she says, almost managing not to sound grudging about it. "Still needs a secondary form to--"

"Give the justification for why we're using the consul, yes, I know." Yuliang is having far too much fun pulling papers out of that folder, and she has at least a dozen left. "Signed by a Knight."

"Qualifications changed since last month," the Djinn says smugly. "We're in threat level orange on smuggling matters, so everyone from Theft needs higher authorization."

Yuliang's next form is identical, aside from the signature. "Signed by a Captain."

The secondary Djinn is starting to look impatient--which I always find a strange expression, on a Djinn--with no excuse to either open the gate or fling someone away yet. The paperwork Djinn squares her shoulders, and stares at the form for a long, silent moment.

"If you don't like it," Yuliang says, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I have one signed by a Marquis, but I usually save that for the trip back."

The Djinn waves Djinnishly toward the gate. "Next," she says, all her eyestalks swiveling away from us. And the gate opens. Simple as that.

Yuliang drops the folder into my hands, and pulls me on through. "Bless it, that was so _short_ ," she says. "Sometimes I can keep them going through two thirds of the folder! Maybe on the way back. We'll have to remember to bring a bag along so that we can do all the luggage checks."

"You have a strange idea of fun, Yuliang."

"Tell me you weren't spending that whole time working out how to take out that gate."

I glance back to see how far out of earshot we've gotten. We're still in caves, though the change in temperature and light ahead tell me we're coming up on the city's edge. "I may have been working out how to degrade the lower bars just enough that they'll come down on their own a few days from now, or the next time someone bounces off them hard. But I wouldn't actually do that, because, gosh, it'd be against the rules."

"See?" Yuliang elbows me in the side, and her grin's the kind that makes me smile back. "We all make our own fun."

#

The mall Yuliang has chosen could have come straight from Los Angeles. This is unnerving, because we are not in Los Angeles. We are, according to the noise outside and the demons in here, still in Shal-Mari. The signs are written in Helltongue. There is a demonling in a white-striped hat staffing the orange julius kiosk.

There is an orange julius kiosk.

Do we even _have_ oranges in Hell?

"Let me guess," I tell Yuliang. "It's made with real julius."

"Oo, could be," she says. "Do not ask for the ingredient list." She checks her phone. "Okay, we have five must-hit stores, and plenty of time for wandering, plus at least one trip to a store you'll like. That should still leave us an hour for the food court."

"Why," I say, watching the drifts of humans and demons in this place, "would we want to take an hour in the food court?"

"People-watching, of course." Yuliang's a little pushier about directing our path here in the Shal-Mari mall than she's ever been in Shanghai. The crowds aren't any worse, but I suppose there's more danger of accidentally squashing some human--or being trampled by other demons--than on the corporeal. "Everyone's a special snowflake, sure, but you can learn a lot about people in general by watching them in groups. And the better you understand them, the easier it is to get what you want from them."

"Mostly," I say, "I want them to leave me be." This is not precisely true. I would rather they not shy away from me, as if I might rampage through a storefront at the slightest provocation. Out in the streets everyone's too cramped to do anything but elbow past whoever's in their way; here, there's just enough space, though this mall's damn busy by corporeal standards, to watch out for and avoid the undesirable sorts. Like me. But sometimes it's easier to express my half-assed social desires as _just leave me alone_ instead of trying to specify.

"There are ways to get that, too," Yuliang says. "But it's so much more fun if they leave you alone because they're running off to do errands for you." She bumps her shoulder against mine, and it feels more like sincere affection than our arm-in-arm stroll, which is merely practical. "Humans are so _easy_ , Lee, especially on the corporeal, where they're not so suspicious. All you have to do is listen to them, and not violate local unwritten rules that their subculture cares about, then say a few nice things about all the things they told you about themselves. And once in a while you ask them for little favors, so they feel useful, and like you must be a person they like, or why would they have done a favor for you? That way you can save up the big favors for when they already feel attached." She navigates us expertly around a group of chattering large demonlings, some of them hard to distinguish from humans at a distance. It's the clothes, I suppose; there's a definite Shal-Mari trend in what the crowds wear, even if I couldn't definite well yet, and humans and small demons alike wear it around here. "You should try it. You're making friends with your Role, aren't you?"

"Sure. I mean. Acquaintances." This entire mall is a bizarre combination of utterly familiar surroundings and completely unknown details. It's like--stepping out of that Tether into Germany for the first time, but more so. More like a Los Angeles mall. Even further from standard human cultural tropes. Helltongue on what looks very much like a Hot Topic, kiosks offering the exact same cell phone accessories as on the corporeal, a Habbalite with crackling wires threaded through his skin standing at an intersection of corridors with a currency exchange booth. "We don't have a lot in common."

"You don't need to. People like to talk about themselves, so you act interested in whatever that is, and ask more questions." She wrinkles her nose. "Just don't _say_ that you're doing that. People are also really weird about that, even if you're doing exactly what they want. There's this whole thing about social skills, where everyone likes the people who are good at them, but everyone wants to pretend it's just natural, instead of a skill. As if doing something by _accident_ means that you're more sincere about it than doing it deliberately. No one goes all 'Oh, you drive without even _thinking_ about not hitting other cars, that's so much more meaningful than if you avoided them on purpose!' But you talk to people and suddenly--" She pauses, with a flicker of a frown, but I've already grabbed the nearest convenient body part--a wing, as it turns out--of the demonling that brushed past her. "Kid, you aren't very good at that," Yuliang says.

"At what?" The demonling's six Forces and plenty of bravado, all the heft and sneer of a teenage human.

"Pickpocketing," I say. "I mean, seriously, your lookout's not doing her job, and your backup just _bolted_ while we were talking. What you really ought to be doing is working with a proper distraction, and even then, you need to pick your targets better. Is this really a three-demon operation, or did someone call in sick?"

"More likely called in dead," Yuliang says, with a toss of her hair. "Seriously, the malls are rife with these puppy packs. This must be a new group, or mall security would've ripped them apart by now. They walk through twice, think it's a target-rich environment, and they just don't _think_ about why that's the case."

"You didn't notice the undercover security," I say to the demonling, who might yet become an Impudite if it wises up. How six-Force demonlings end up being stupider than five-Force humans, I don't know, but it's pretty constant, in my limited experience. Maybe it's _their_ limited experience that makes it so. "Thirty seconds earlier, and one of them would've spotted you. Assuming they're any sort of competent--"

"In this place? Generally," Yuliang says. "No one shops in a place where they can't walk three steps without losing their wallet." She's retrieved what the kid stole, and it wasn't the cash, which I think is in her bag; it's some little makeup case, of the sort I have made a point not to learn the use of. This idiot demonling would never make it to the corporeal in Theft, and look at the standards we have. "What do you want to do with it?"

I suppose I am still holding the demonling by one wing. And it's still full of sullen bravado, though it has at least acquired enough sense to shut up by this point. "What are the options? Wouldn't want to break some local ordinance about littering."

"You could just pass it to security," Yuliang says, with a one-shouldered shrug. "They'll take your word for what happened regardless, you're bigger and you have money. But no resonating anyone apart inside, they have cleaning crews but they hate getting that off the windows."

"Too much trouble," I say, and let go of the demonling's wing.

It vanishes back into the crowds--well, tries to vanish, it clearly hasn't learned the art of blending in as well as it thinks--and is rejoined by one of its compatriots. They don't seem to be heading towards an exit, but that's not _my_ problem. By this point, one of the uniformed mall cops has an eye on them; the undercover security I spotted is investigating a squabble by a pretzel stand.

"I _hate_ getting goo all over my clothes," Yuliang says, which I think is meant as approval of my choice. "Oo, it's the pet shop!" She drags me to the left so fast I have to do a spin on one foot to not be walking sideways. And being an Impudite of Theft, she has no problem whatsoever making her way through four dense streams of foot traffic to the store entrance without any collisions.

My question as to what a pet store in Hell could offer is answered by the display cages in the windows. Demonlings, of course, mostly of the three-Force variety. Someone's gone through what's considered vermin or aggressive debris and selected the ones that have some sort of coherent aesthetic, if not necessarily the kind of aesthetic you'd want on your mantlepiece.

"Okay," I say, "we've seen the pet shop."

"It's better inside," Yuliang insists, and drags me right in. The store's staffed by a human, as seems to be the case for most of the stores in this mall. Heavy security makes it a lot safer to let a damned soul guard your cash register. "See, there in the pens! Isn't that fuzzy one adorable?"

"Not the word I would've chosen, actually." More like a terrier-sized bullfrog made of velour. It stares at us with enormous unblinking eyes. "And at this size, you can't tell what anything's going to turn into."

"No, of course not. You go to a specialty dealer for that. You won't find that sort of thing in a mall. These are like..." Yuliang leans on the edge of the pen, and wiggles her fingers at the demonling. It might as well be stuffed for all the response it gives her. "Pets. Toys. You can put one in a bottle on a bookshelf, or make it sit on your shoulder."

"Or make them into familiars, ma'am," volunteers the clerk. Her Helltongue is excellent, with a Shal-Mari accent that makes her sound like a native. "We can recommend a place that handles all the details for that, if you're looking. If you'd like something more defined, sir, we do have some four-Force ones in. They can read and write, and they don't nip. Aside from the on in the muzzle. It's on clearance."

"How nice for them," I say. I did not mean this as encouragement, but the clerk make a grand gesture towards a glass-walled section in the back of the shop, where three demonlings have been segregated in individual cubicles, all conveniently located at face height. One squiddy thing is muzzled and huddling in the back of its; the second is covered in restless fur; and the third holds up a sign to the glass in misshapen sigils. _Take me home. I do sums._

"You could get a puppy!" Yuliang says.

"That's not a puppy. I've seen puppies. That...is really not a puppy."

"But it has floppy ears and a cute little black nose, and fur," Yuliang says. "And it's wagging that bit." She tilts her head to the side. "I mean, it's not a _puppy_ puppy, but it's...puppy-esque. You could do worse!"

It would be some sort of local misdemeanour to start breaking things in here. And what would it help? A demonling in a cage is one that's not being idly pulled apart for leaving goo on a brothel floor, or trampled by a theater crowd in a moment of boredom while waiting for the real show to start. "Puppies need exercise, and it'd just sit in the office chewing on my furniture and books." I am leaving this store, and Yuliang can come along whenever she'd like.

She chooses to keep up with me rather than linger at the tank demonstrating that breathing air is technically optional in Hell. "If you got a secretary, you could have them take care of it," she says, "but I suppose that defeats the purpose of having a puppy. Do you want a secretary? Some people like having one, for handling their mail and such."

"It's not like my office is being buried in mail."

"True. And you can pull from the work pool any time you need someone." She tucks her arm into mine again. "I could get you a puppy for your Role, but Zee would send it to a nice farm somewhere far out in the country the first time your back was turned."

"I honestly don't want any pets, animal or otherwise." It's a bad plan on so many levels. Not even getting into Kyriotate issues, it's just...a bad idea.

"They're never quite like the first one," Yuliang says, and pauses just long enough to kiss me on the cheek. "Give it ten years, and maybe you'll want another. The world is _full_ of cute things. Like in here. We should get you a new shirt."

I follow her into the store (which is clearly not The Gap) and argue about shirts, so that I'm not thinking about Katherine at all.

#

I have become inured to clothing shopping with Yuliang. I realize this on the third floor, when I have lost track of the number of stores we've been through. She tries to foist some piece of clothing off on me in every store that offers something vaguely appropriate to my Band and gender, but she's willing to take a _no thank you_ , and keep up a conversation about other things meanwhile. And there's nothing so terrible about watching her try on clothes, and giving an opinion on request. It is, frankly, more fun than dealing with Regan and her weaponry. I am not big into knives or guns. Nothing against them, but I've been on the wrong end of them too much to find them appealing on their own account.

"Just a shirt," Yuliang says, dragging me through the sections of the latest set, while I keep trying to work out how the listed prices--the stores don't all use the same currency, which doesn't help--actually match corporeal prices. There's surely an exchange market somewhere in this city that'll give me dollar-to-Essence rates, but damned if I've been able to figure out so much as rule of thumb yet. The supply chains may be too different to compare between the planes. Labor's cheap here, Essence is plentiful but controlled in wildly different ways from one Principality to the next, and raw materials...well, are best not thought about too closely.

"I'm pretty happy with my shirt," I say. "We could get another one like this."

"It looks, and no offense intended, Lee, like you bought it in a Stygian pawn shop." She plucks a shirt off a rack, while a clerk--I'm not sure if he's Charmed or just paid enough to be attentive--hovers a polite distance away, holding what Yuliang's already moved into the maybe pile for herself. "Which is _fine_ if you're going for that vibe, but it doesn't really mesh with the jacket, and the shoes could use an upgrade."

"I like these shoes."

"The shoes are fine! Grunge is always in, back home. It's a theme. But your theme's not quite _cohesive_ , right? So it could use more focus."

I accept the stack of shirts she hands me, as it's easier than arguing. "I don't think I'm ready for theme in my clothing yet. It's some sort of advanced course. But I'm pulling A's in Being Clothed 101 lately, so I'm happy with that."

"Oh, _Lee_." She pushes me into a changing room, roomy enough for broad Djinn and thus only a little cramped for the two of us, and closes the door behind us. "Do you care what you have on at all?"

"No?"

"You see," she continues, in that brightly relentless way she has when she's spotted her target, "if you didn't care at _all_ you'd just let Zee dress you, right? So you must care a bit. And you can just get away with _anything_ you want to wear, it's fine, especially since you're a Calabite. People don't expect a lot! But since you do care, even if it's just a little bit, you should think about the message you're sending."

"My general message," I say, "is that I don't care about this stuff." Even if I am letting her tug my jacket off--this is so much trickier in Hell, with wings to work around--in preparation for trying on these stupid shirts.

"See, that one never works, because you can't send a message that there's no message. It's like trying to prove a negative. You end up projecting 'I care that you notice I'm not putting work into this,' and, well, that can be a thing! Some people really like that one, but it's not the same." She unbuttons my shirt all down the front, fast with her fingers and her horns almost touching my chest as she leans in to focus on this. "You could try to project that you can't afford to project a coherent message. It's a type of lie some people enjoy."

"It used to be the truth."

"But it's not," Yuliang says. She steps back, and slips my shirt over my shoulders, to where it hangs on the joints of my wings. "You're a demon with ten Forces, two vessels, and a Role. You report to a Marquis. You have an expense account and a salary, and not all of it's corporeal, though of course there's a percentage going to office amenities like the coffee kiosk and all, but see, you're the sort of person who has a salary that gets drawn on for office amenities. That's not the same as not being able to afford an outfit that sends a coherent message."

I slouch back against the wall of the changing room. "You're saying that I'm _slumming_?"

"Essentially." She follows me to the wall, and hooks a leg around mine, settling in close. "You can wear whatever you want, honest. You're not doing messenger work where you're representing the company. I just want you to _think_ about it, Lee. Your Role on the corporeal is whatever it is, that's always an act, so Zee can make choices there, but here, you're...whoever you are. And that's not blue collar. You're not part of the struggling masses."

"Fuck it all, Yuliang. I never wanted to become The Man."

"It's not like you're part of the _Game_." She slides a hand between my wings, under that shirt, and her other hand down my pants. "We're just corporate on the outside. Like a shiny candy shell. We still do the fun things, but we're upscale fun. Less the Artful Dodger, more James Bond."

"Jason Bourne."

"I bet you do amazing things on walls, too. Wren said that you're a _perfectly_ good second-story thief, and she doesn't say that about just anyone." She's being distracting, and I'm sure it's deliberate. (And should I hold it against her when she's being manipulative? It's not like she's being dishonest about what she wants from me. Just...skilled. In aiming at it.) "You're good at what you do. I'm good at what _I_ do, that's why we're given as much as the boss does give us, because we _earn_ it." She kisses me like we have her whole apartment around us, not a mall dressing room with a shoddy lock. "Let me give you help, using what I know, and you can be more yourself. Just that little bit sharper in showing people who you really are. Or showing people whatever person you want them to think you are. Anyone you want to be, as true as you want it."

#

She's really good at getting her way.

And it's not like I _particularly_ care what I end up wearing, so long as it's not uncomfortable or ridiculous. We have swapped out every item I'm wearing except for the artifact jacket, and I'm not unhappy with the results. Can't say I see a lot of difference beyond the price tags, but Yuliang's happy, and I could do a chase sequence in this outfit. It's good enough.

Okay, I _do_ care just enough that I wish Lanthano were around to give me an opinion. He doesn't seem to have any trouble finding clothes in Stygia without setting foot in Shal-Mari, and--well. He'd have an opinion of some sort. Which apparently I care about.

I have become the sort of person who spends five hours (and counting) in a Shal-Mari mall with an Impudite, and the sort of person who cares what another Impudite thinks about his clothing. I'm not sure how this happened. Hell, I care what Zabina thinks about me, even if we disagree on the fashion issues there. It's just...odd. All these people, who matter in a variety of ways.

Maybe that has nothing to do with trekking through yet another damn clothing store, but I need to think about something while I'm on this trip. At least I'm not carrying packages. (There's a kiosk for the delivery service on each floor, and Yuliang drops off what she's bought as regularly as if that's a job too.) So I end up thinking about the person I'm with, and the people I'm not with. I'm so used to my head being full of my partner and my job that there wasn't room for anyone else. Or if anyone else was in there, it was a problem, whether it was Katherine or Penny or Lanthano or--it just didn't work. There wasn't enough room in my life for Zhune and anyone else.

Yuliang doesn't mind that I like Lanthano better. Zabina doesn't mind that I spend time with Yuliang. It's almost hard to wrap my mind around; Regan would have pitched a fit over any of this by now, if we were still involved. Or stabbed someone.

Probably stabbed someone. It was always her style.

"Who's on your mind?" Yuliang asks, as we sweep out of another store. (No discreet hand-offs with the clerk in this one; I've only caught her doing that twice, and I'm only really _sure_ on the one she did eight stores back.) She isn't asking _what's_ on my mind, and I'm not sure if she's that good at reading me or just focused on people as standard Impudite practice.

"My ex-girlfriend."

"That Balseraph, from the War?" Yuliang steers us toward the escalators down. We can't be leaving yet, unless she's forgotten about the food court. (I will not be that lucky.) She doesn't even need her attunement to break a path for us, when we're moving in a traffic flow; people are giving us slightly more space than before. I haven't figured out yet if it's from the way the mall's crowds change during the day--even Hell, without a sun, has its rhythms based on clocks and when the daily Essence hits--or something to do with the change of what I'm wearing. Probably it's just the time of day.

"Her, yes." Even if I'd rather people not judge me on my Band so much, it's not such a bad thing to have the way in front of me clear when I just want to reach the damn escalator, which must not be from Technology, as it hasn't caught on fire or impaled anyone in the entire time we've been in the mall. "Where to next?"

"Some place you'll like," Yuliang says, which I would find more convincing if she hadn't said the same thing about the shoe store. "Did your ex drag you clothes shopping too?"

"Not really. She was more into weapons shopping, and she wasn't about to let me handle any of that." The two of us detour around a Lilim who's swanning through the mall with a personal assistant and bodyguard trailing behind her. Maybe hired, maybe her own, not really worth running into just to make a point about having right of way. "I mean, the War. They're all obsessed with ways to murder people."

"Boring," Yuliang declares. "You can't do anything with dead people, except hide the bodies, and that's more a chore than anything else. It can be a bonding activity, but mostly? A chore."

"Bathtub, and about ten minutes," I say. "But it gives me a headache."

There's one of those tiny pauses in conversation when I recall that the company is not made of particularly murderous individuals. At least, not that I've noticed. "Has that come up often?" Yuliang asks lightly.

She killed a Vapulan in front of me (it was thoroughly justified) and while I know that for a fact, I've only got tacit evidence for how much it bothered her. "Not since I left the War in such a big hurry," I say, and her arm in mine loses that hint of tension that it picked up with the question.

Things not to say at this point: that _not since then_ has nothing to do with being less inclined to kill people, and an awful lot to do with hit-and-run jobs that weren't looking to be tidy on the way through. There's no point in spending a lot of time disposing of bodies--maybe some incriminating evidence as to who created it, sure--when it's going to be perfectly obvious that the place got hit and someone is missing. Zhune has never hesitated to take down someone standing in our way, and that goes double for likely celestials who wouldn't cause disturbance.

Though it's not _our_ way, anymore. It's the way he does things, with whoever he works with right now. Old friends or a new partner, or maybe he's working on his own. He's a damn good Thief, and he's done amazing work on his own before. Even if he's better when there's someone to watch his back.

Not my job.

We are approaching a lingerie shop. I wonder if I could discreetly remove a plate glass window somewhere else and convince Yuliang it's a sign that there's trouble around here and we need to go back home. "You're sure it's not time for the food court section of this trip?"

"Ye of little faith," Yuliang says, the English foreign to me for an instant in this place, and drags me sideways. Right past the intersection with the lingerie store, to one of the darker side branches of the mall. "Pages. Predates the word processor, actually, by _some_ time. It's not so illustrious as one of those Fate-run stores that's been around since forever, but point the first, you won't find them in a mall, and point the second, they have the worst selection."

"Fuck me," I say. "I didn't even know Shal-Mari had bookstores."

"Well, not like the place has restaurants and brothels and theaters. The locals have this whole thing about having a captive audience, you know?" Yuliang doesn't even have to tug to get me through the door of this place. It's not half so big as one of those nationwide corporate bookstores from the US, but the shelves run right up to the ceiling, and the aisles are narrow. They've got some selection in here. No racks of CDs or greeting cards or notebooks; this bookstore sells _books_.

Yuliang is so smug, and not even trying to hide it.

"You need something for all those shelves," she says. We brush past a pair of damned souls browsing a selection of magazines up at the front of the store. "And the selection is _so_ much better here than what gets to Stygia pawn shops, like you wouldn't believe. Trying to buy books in Stygia is like buying them in a grocery store. Half the bestsellers and nothing else. Shipping's a pain, but don't worry about that this time, it's my treat. What section do you want to check first?"

I check out the signs overhead. Half these genres I don't recognize, and I think Westerns has to mean something different in Helltongue than it does in English. (Strictly speaking, there's not even a west on the celestial plane. You don't have a magnetic north.) "Classics?"

"Um. Sure, that's probably..." Yuliang bites her lip, and looks around. A clerk freezes as that gaze falls on him, and tries to smile. "Oh, let's just browse. It's not like clothes, where it's fun to have people follow you around and help out. Historicals? That's got a whole resurgence right now, or that's what my friends in Media say."

Historicals turn out to be very excited about dead Superiors, who, I gather, can't step up and argue with how they're being portrayed in fiction. There are entire series written about the adventures of demons serving Princes I've never _heard_ of, and a prominently featured doorstop of a book whose blurb hints at Nybbas having come from a Fallen Archangel of some sort. Knowledge, if I'm reading between the lines properly. I grab a novel that promises comedy of manners in Regency England, and go looking for another set of shelves.

One enormous bookcase is given over to nothing but Fall memoirs. "They all read the same after a while," Yuliang says, "but there's a new one every year. Every month, really. I guess they sell? And the Game subsidizes them, too. Oh! Do you like spy stuff? Because there's this whole series about Game spies doing deep undercover work near Notre Dame. _So_ implausible, but it's a lot of fun, and there's illustrations. Full color, you can tell where the subsidies are going, and it's not to writers."

"Maybe to the editors," I say. "I think in the Game you're obliged to commit ritual suicide if you publish anything with typos."

"Nah. That's Fate." Yuliang whips me around a corner so fast I smack my shoulder on a shelf. "Cross-Word romance! With or without tragic endings."

"Please, _no_."

We determine in short order that there's an entire half the store I can stay away from, because when Hell isn't trying to cater to humans, it's catering to the demons who--aren't very human. It's not that I think I'm particularly human myself. Different species. Different category of being entirely. But I've spent far more of my life on the corporeal than in Hell, and pretty much every bit of my life that I've _liked_ was over there. It's bound to wear off. There are genres of books in Hell that will never make it into human bookstores, and that's probably for the best. And they're not for me.

The comic section, now, that's another matter.

"Manga," Yuliang says firmly.

"Helltongue shouldn't have loanwords. That's just odd."

"Oh, it'll become native soon enough. Just give it a little time!" Yuliang spreads her arms wide, as if she's introducing a group performance. "You can find _any_ kind of story in here. Non-fiction too, if you like, but that's over down that aisle with the rest of that reference stuff. Really more Fate's thing, honestly. But the stories you can get here are the best."

"Best," I say, and find myself staring at a display table of manga that's all...Theft. Media's version of Theft, anyway. Stylish demons at fancy parties, jewel heists with a lot of flipping over lasers, punk kids in fast cars. "I don't think I can read about heists, Yuliang, it's just too weird."

"It's not all heists." She grabs a volume from the shelf to wave at me. "This one's all about the nature of the self and what you do when your best friend got turned into a Remnant and then the other side attached Forces to them and whether or not that's a betrayal or them just being stolen from you, and it's beautiful and touching and the art's great and it has _so_ many good lines, you'd love it. Or this one. A race against time to a point in the back of the Marches. It's weird and surprising but it all makes sense in the end, I swear. There are _so_ many good stories. Really."

"Don't they have anything from Earth?"

"You can get the books the humans write over there," Yuliang says, with just the faintest edge of annoyance creeping into her voice. "So easily! But Hell's not made entirely of borrowed culture. We've got our own authors and our own stories here. You want to learn how humans think, you go read a lot of their books. You want to learn how demons think...read a lot of our books. This is, like, your birthright."

I pick a title off the shelf. "Magical mermaids?"

"Vephar stories are making a big splash this year. No pun intended. It's a thing, it was all about Oblivion last decade." She waves her hands. "The details aren't the point. The point is trying something new. Learn to like some of the stuff in Hell. It's not all something you need to hide from." She loops her arm into mine. "Do you want to check out the porn? They've got a whole great angel porn section, if you're into that."

"Maybe I'll try that Remnant thing. But not the Marches one, I'd rather go there than read about it."

"Well, the reading's cheaper." She snaps her fingers towards a clerk in the middle of shelving, and the human scurries over to accept the books Yuliang begins piling into her arms. "Tell you what, I'll get you a bunch of manga that you ought to try. Then we hit the translations, and _you_ can get me some books you think I ought to read. After that I'll have a better idea of what you like."

There is no way to admit I like stories without a lot of violence or furor in them; as a Calabite, I just embarrass myself if I try to explain. "Have you ever read _Sense and Sensibility_?"

"Nope. Have you ever read _Coco and Grace_?"

"No?"

"You'll like it," Yuliang says, and grabs another stack. "First five volumes, and if it hasn't hooked you by volume three, where it really gets going, then maybe it won't be your thing. There's a drink recipe at the back of each story, and it gets weird in a really good way around volume ten, but it's solid from the start. Lots of people losing arms. Oo, and we have to get you at least _one_ of the Drake reboots, I know they do a new set every forty or fifty years, but it's always good."

"Will you actually read the books I buy you?"

"Scout's honor," Yuliang says. She smiles winningly at the human clerk, who is beginning to stagger under the load of books. "We're going to need two trips to the packaging service."

#

I have been in Shal-Mari for seven or eight hours. I have not broken anything or anyone. I am wearing a nearly complete change of clothes, and I seem to be mailing enough books back home to fill one of those bookshelves from top to bottom. This has run through Yuliang's cash, her Essence, and most of mine.

Whatever they say about demons not really being able to get tired the way people can on the corporeal, I am not up to doing much more than sprawling in this chair in the food court and watching people walk by.

"Are we done with everything?" I ask, because I don't know if there's a standard way of asking _Did you get the secret exchange of goods and/or information handled already_ in public. The company probably has some set ways of cueing these things. I should ask Lanthano about it, or Zabina.

"Pretty much." Yuliang pokes at her tray. She's having more fun playing with her food than eating it. "I'm just in no rush to get back, you know? It's nice to be out somewhere else once in a while. See what the people are like in the mall. It's not like back home." She wrinkles her nose, and then laughs. "It's not like the rest of Shal-Mari, either. It's like--Disneyland, right? Clean and secure and full of shiny things to suck your money away."

"Fewer rides," I say. "Unless you count the escalator." I finally open the lid of the Haa-Chan Meal that Yuliang insisted on buying me. "Do I want to know what the nuggets are made of?"

"First rule of Gluttony restaurants is don't ask for the ingredients list." Yuliang swipes a nugget from my box. "C'mon, show me the toy you got."

"Oh no. I am an adult, in every possible means of counting it. I do not get happy meal toys."

"Haa-Chan Meals. _Completely_ different. Everyone can enjoy toys from these meals!"

I push the box her way. "All yours."

"No, you need to take a look! It's more fun this way." She rests her chin on her hand. "Now tell me you didn't have any fun at all on this trip."

I fish a black plastic package out of the box. "Too many clothing stores."

"Not even a _little_ fun."

I resonate the plastic off the toy. It's more satisfying that way. "Maybe a little fun. Next time you could just park me in the bookstore and come back when you're done with the other things."

"Be nice, Lee. Only one shoe store! I was so restrained. And, look, you got a little Drake! I like its sidekicks better, usually, but, you know. Every series needs a protagonist, even if they're not the most interesting one."

I have a jointed plastic Balseraph with a jaunty hat. The wings twist around on their joints, the hat comes off, and you can sort of coil it up or spread it out. Cheap, but cute. Katherine would've loved it, and broken it after five minutes, and pitched a fit over wanting a replacement.

"Yeah," I say. "It was fun. What the hell is a Drake, anyway?"

"You're going to have to read the books to find out."

#

I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to read any of the books, because when we get back to the office, Zabina's ready to drop back to the corporeal. (There was a schedule we've overshot, thank you Yuliang, but at least we're not terribly late.) No hauling anything from Hell to the corporeal unless you're willing to invest in making it into a proper artifact. With my current lack of Essence? I'd end up owing something for that. I can wait.

I leave the stupid little plastic figure on the shelf by the books. It almost looks like that room belongs to someone.

At this rate I'm going to spend days not thinking about Katherine. Nothing new. It's better than spending all that time trying not to think about Zhune.


	52. In Which I'm Still Too Damn Nice Around The Small And Stupid

I'm slogging through a book on Chinese history--in Chinese, which is what makes it the slog--when my phone chirps. It's an automated message letting me know that someone's tripped one of the alarms, and it's matched by the sound of a car in the front courtyard.

The afternoon's too hot for a lot of fussing around outside. Still. It'd be irresponsible not to take a look. I leave my book balanced on the windowsill, and climb up onto the roof to see what's going on in the front of the house. Simpler and more fun than walking downstairs, and a lot faster for looking over the courtyard. (Fastest would be going through Giovanna's room, but I'm not that much of an asshole.) What I get is a glimpse of one of those baby Thieves from weeks ago bolting from the car to the front door. Just the one, now pounding on the door.

Someone's missing their Magpie flock. Never a good sign.

I get to the foyer while Giovanna's opening the door. "Afternoon, Frauke," I say, and get myself between the Balseraph and the mortal just in case, because the kid does not look particularly in control of herself right now. "What happened to your friends?"

"You have to help me," Frauke says, with such force of intent that it nearly becomes truth in my head. Nearly.

"I don't have to do any blessed thing for you," I say, and flick a glance at Giovanna. Who has the sense to walk briskly away towards Zabina's office. The boss is on a very important call, and may not bother to come in to deal with this when I can handle it myself, but she ought to know what's going on. "However, you can always ask." I wait for Frauke to open her mouth, and add, " _Politely_."

She hisses out a breath. "I need to get my team back."

"This still doesn't sound like my problem. Want to give a little more detail?"

The Liar's hands are curled into fists at her side, and I wonder if she knows how to throw a punch. Doesn't come up much in her native form. "We work for the _same Word_ and you _ought_ to help me. It's my whole team! The Game has them, and we hate the Game, and _you_ should, and you should be helping me already, you should be asking how you can _help_."

"The Game doesn't arrest Thieves for absolutely no reason," Zabina says. She can sweep into the room even while dressed casually; I think it comes with being a Lilim. Her gaze rakes the kid up and down and dismisses her all in one shot. "Their reasons may not be good, but there's always something. What did you do?"

"Nothing," Frauke says, quick as reflex instead of thought.

"Didn't do it, wasn't there, you can't prove anything." I shut up when Zabina turns her gaze on me, but she gives me a near imperceptible nod. So I can run with this. "Give us the gist, so we know how much trouble is on your heels."

"No one's behind me. I was careful." The Balseraph can't figure out which of us she needs to convince, and ends up talking to me while shooting constant looks back to Zabina. "Corbl found this great shot to just, just take some stuff, not from a _Tether_ or anything. Game offices with just one Gamester. That's what he said. He got the tip from someone else. But it wasn't just one and the alarm system we cut wasn't the only one and they got everyone except me, so you have to help me. We're Wordmates. You're supposed to!"

I clasp my hands behind my back, and rock on my heels for a moment. Setting aside a whole raft of questions... "How did you get away?"

"I'm fast. I'm smart. I was careful!" Frauke flushes under my stare. "I was outside watching. Not like I was afraid, Corbl _told_ me to, but no one came in from outside. All the trouble was in there waiting for them. When it got bad, I knew I couldn't fix it myself, so I went looking for help."

"And you came here."

"You gave us advice," Frauke says. She huffs out another breath; in her true form, her tongue would be flicking about. "You told us to get better at things. I'm trying. How am I supposed to get any better at this if even my own Word won't help me? Are you just going to let the Game have them?"

"If they were foolish enough to raid Game offices on a tip, without casing the place properly beforehand," Zabina says, "I don't see that they're much of an asset to be regained. It's entirely likely the Game let you run to see who else they could pull in."

"I covered my tracks!"

"And came straight here," I point out. "Nothing against even the Game's rules for Theft to talk to Theft, but if anyone follows you back there, they'll be waiting."

"I thought you were supposed to be good at this," Frauke says. "With your--Roles and houses and cars, like you're _better_ than us, but you're just afraid of getting caught."

"It's more that we're wondering why you want those people back," I say, because Zabina is preparing a far more scathing response that I'd rather not have happen right this minute. It's trivial to throw this kid out on her ear, and her only recourse would be to make a nuisance of herself. "They're not very competent, and you didn't seem to like them much on your last visit. Go to the Tether in Dresden and offer to tag along with the people who walk through. One of them will want a free lookout. You might even learn something."

"I don't want to be some stranger's pet," the Balseraph spits. Poor little snake, all full of anger and just smart enough to know she can't use it as a real weapon yet. "I want my team back! Corbl is _smart_ , and so, okay, he made one mistake. Lots of people make a mistake without it ruining their whole career."

"Lucifer spare me from infants with delusions of loyalty," Zabina murmurs. She raises an eyebrow perfectly at Frauke, who's just as tall in vessel, and she still comes across as looking down at the Balseraph. "You've lost your team, child, to a hazard they took on voluntarily. You have no plan to retrieve them beyond asking other people to take on the risks for you. Consider it a lesson in performing self-assessment before taking on new challenges."

"I could pay you back," Frauke says. "I would owe you. If you helped." If she were a Calabite, something would have broken by now, but she's still standing here while we tell her no, and no, and no again, in all our condescending ways. Even a Balseraph has to realize by this point that she's getting nothing.

"Too much risk," Zabina says, "too little reward."

"Ian might do it," I say, and smile sweetly, not like a Calabite at all, when the both of them look at me. "Well, he _might_ , if there's a price attached. He's been whining about boredom, so why not give him some stupid challenge?"

"Rachel," Zabina says, "have you even read that section on sunk costs in your economics text?"

I shrug, hands still clasped behind me. "It's only throwing good money after bad if we _lose_ something, right? And if he's made it this long without keeling over, that has to count for something. It's worth checking, and it'd get this kid out of the foyer."

Zabina is not the sort to sigh dramatically, but I think sometimes she wishes she were. Instead, she turns back to Frauke. "I'll pass along your request. If he agrees to help you in any way, you will owe me. If he succeeds in pulling any of your people back out, you will owe me a great deal. Is this acceptable?"

Frauke's tongue flicks over her lips briefly. "Who's Ian?"

"Another Wordmate," Zabina says, "with rather poor risk assessment skills."

"--okay," Frauke says, "sure, I'll pay for the introduction if he helps, but I'm only willing to pay _lots_ if it gets Corbl back. Not for those others."

"It's a deal," Zabina says. "Go back into the city, and wait somewhere reasonably public. If he takes on your problem, he'll contact you before midnight."

The Balseraph hesitates. "But--"

"Go," Zabina says.

The kid bolts. At least she finally has a direction to run.

"You have a flight on Thursday," Zabina says.

"If I can't get this done by Wednesday night, it's not happening." I wish for clothing with better pockets; women's summer clothing is not big on places to shove my hands when I'm feeling defensive. "It's probably not happening anyway, because enough Game to hold three baby Magpies is more Game than I can take on by myself without getting noisy. And I expect you want me to keep this quiet."

"Very," Zabina says. Her mouth twitches. "I suppose you'll take that as permission, now."

"I was going to wait for _explicit_ permission, given the scope of this. But--seriously, I can be careful. Skulk up next door, see what's going on and if there's an easy fix. You have a Geas on that kid, for whatever that's worth, even if I tell her it's too dangerous and walk away." I can feel my shoulders curling in, like I'm Guo here, and I make a point of standing up straight. I am a fucking adult who can ask for a favor without flinching over it. "Do you not think I can do subtle?"

"I am recalling the incident with Adrian's car."

"He told me to make a distraction! And he didn't mention in that _entire_ trip that the host was one of his regular pets, or that he wanted her resources kept in one piece. I don't expect that from Shedim if they don't say anything about it." Oh, that's sounding much too defensive. "If you let me try this, I'll play it safe and quiet. No one dead, no use of Thunder, nothing set on fire. I mean. Nothing set on fire in a way that'd cause disturbance, and with only a miniature Balseraph at hand, I don't think I could set a major fire without disturbance, so. Probably no fire at all."

"Your idea of being reassuring worries me," Zabina says. She steps near me, but only to comb my hair back into place with her fingers. "You will be careful, you will be quiet, and you will back away immediately if you suspect matters are about to collapse. Even if it means leaving that ridiculous child behind. Understood?"

"Perfectly."

She waits until I'm two steps up the stairs before calling my name. Zabina's better at deliberate, manipulative timing than I am. I turn back to her, and she says, "Why do you want to help her?"

The right answer is _Because I've been bored_ or maybe _I hold a grudge against the Game_ , but this is a test, like any other. And part of the way to pass the tests is to never lie to my supervisor. Not unless I can get a lot better at it.

"I have a soft spot for kids in trouble," I say. "I got lucky a few times over, when I was new to the corporeal, and wouldn't have lasted otherwise. Only seems fair to give other people a few chances to correct their mistakes."

"You'd do her more good if you let her figure this one out herself," Zabina says.

"Or she'd run in there herself, and get caught."

"Also a learning experience," Zabina says. "You'll have to spend the flight catching up on your homework."

"Better than staring out the window." And since she's done with me for the moment, I take the stairs up two at a time. Not much planning to do before I know more about the situation, but I can pack. For two trips, in case I'm cutting my return awfully close.


	53. In Which I Fail To Educate Someone In Need Of An Education

If someone told me to sit around in public for hours, I would've found a coffee shop. The Balseraph has found a park. This could've made her harder to find, but Zabina never would've told someone to just go sit out in public and wait without a plan. Turns out the plan involved Giovanna bugging Frauke's car while the rest of us were having our conversation. I do like that girl sometimes, no matter how little that's returned. She's the most competent Soldier of Hell I've met. Which is not always saying much, but there you have it.

I track Frauke down at the side of a stream, arms wrapped around herself. She's alert enough to notice when I'm approaching, and paranoid (or smart) enough to turn a heel, ready to bolt if I make any threatening moves.

"Tell me you speak French," I say, hands shoved in my pockets. Not so threatening, right?

"Not much," Frauke says, wary still but not too dumb to catch on that I'm likely the man she's expecting. "You don't speak German?"

"Not much. American, darling." I flash her my best Valefor smile. That hasn't been getting as much use as it once did; I ought to keep in practice. "Tell me you have a car." That much I can do in German.

She nods shortly, and stalks away. Her vessel's on the tall side for female, mine's strictly average... It's easy enough to match her pace and look like I'm strolling. We do not much look like a couple, or even a couple of friends, in this combination. More like some smug bastard who doesn't care that his girlfriend's angry at him. So long as we're not drawing attention, I'll take it. Frauke could stand to learn about things like "discreet" and "inconspicuous" in whatever way that lesson is delivered.

I slow down several meters out from the lot. "Have you been driving it since the city where your friends are?" (So I said it a bit less elegantly than that. German. I'm working on it, okay?)

"It's a good car," she says, slowing a step later. "It's clean--"

"Too risky. Pick another one."

She turns back to me, expression flat. "Why should I--"

"If you don't want my help," I say, "I can walk away now."

She swallows. "New car. If you insist." She spins around to survey the lot, which is not deeply promising. "Do care what type?"

I nod toward a man walking away from his car, keys just deposited in a loose coat pocket. "Take his keys. We'll swap again when we're further out."

"I could wire a car." She has the sense not to whisper, just keep her voice quiet. "Isn't that less risk?"

"Do you not want to pick a pocket, or are you not able?"

The Balseraph's next glare is concentrated poison. She stalks away, the woman whose boyfriend has just said something unforgivably boorish. Maybe she should know better than to date an American. It's a good cover for all sorts of things, as I should know. You can excuse a lot of motion by faking a romantic spat. And when the _hell_ did I start using Zhune's methods?

Years and years ago. I'm just used to being on the other side.

The job I've set her isn't a hard one. A gremlin in a crow vessel could swipe those keys. But she does an elegant job of it, graceful and distinctly _Balseraph_ in how she moves as soon as she has the work to focus on.

The Boss doesn't have the highest standards when it comes to who he scoops up and flings down to the corporeal for these gangs. But he has _some_. She's not bad at this. And it'd serve me well to remember that a small demon is still a few Forces up on a human thief, of which there are many effective ones out there.

Frauke gets back to me with the keys; I'm already waiting at the door of the car. "Satisfied?"

I take the keys, which she wasn't quite offering. "Quite. Let's go."

She doesn't raise a fuss about taking the passenger seat. Probably doesn't do a lot of the driving even with her group; maybe I should be glad that she knew enough of the skill to make it to our place without running into the front gate.

"He could come back," she says, while I get the car started. "And see us driving away."

"He was walking toward a pub, Frauke." This is easier in Helltongue, and makes me feel less like I need to interrupt her to keep the conversation under my control. "Even in Germany, people don't dodge into one of those for a two-minute beer very often. Now, do you want to fill me in on the problem?"

"What do you know?"

"Mm, is this the part where you try to figure out if I'm actually the person sent to contact you? Might've wanted to do that before getting into the car. Next time." I tap the rear view mirror into a better position. "You can call me Ian. You lost your team to the Game, and you want them back. Turns out I'm the only person in the area with poor enough risk assessment to give that a try."

"You sound like you're quoting that Lilim," Frauke says. She's sulking in her seat, arms folded over her chest. No seat belt on. Well, if she goes through a windshield, it won't be my fault. "I didn't _lose_ them, the Game _took_ them."

"Sort of ironic, given we're supposed to be the ones who steal people. That's the problem with the Game; they don't appreciate the irony of the situation nearly enough. So _tell_ me, Frauke, before I get bored and drive you back to the park, what happened."

"That's not even my name," she says. "It's just what they called me."

"So give me another one to use. Do you think Ian's my real name?"

She eyes me from her seat in the car. "Guess not. You can call me..." She hesitates, lips moving as she considers forms of whatever name has become her true name, or alternative names she's always wanted. "Elise."

"Elise it is. Now tell me exactly what happened. Start with the part where Corbl told you about this great opportunity, and you can stop at the point where you asked Zee for help."

"I bet you don't call her Zee to her face," Elise says.

"Ha. No. Get talking, or I'm going to have to drive in circles."

#

Forty-five minutes of exhaustive detail and awkward questions later, I'm driving toward the right city, and trying to work out what's going on. This would be easier if Corbl didn't play his cards so close to his chest, even around his own team. He's exactly the sort of smug asshole who likes surprising everyone with his clever plan instead of explaining it up front where they can spot holes in it ahead of time.

Not that I would know anything about that.

Who comes up with an idea to rob the Game, and passes the information on to a pack of kids like this one? Someone more interested in annoying the Game and Theft both than someone who wants that job to succeed. The wonder twins of Shal-Mari are the primary candidates for hating us together, but this doesn't seem like their style. Too little punchline for Dark Humor. Too subtle for Gluttony. And it's just not very reliable, overall; too much chance of the Magpies not deciding to follow up on the great opportunity, even if it was handed out by someone they trusted. (And oh how I'd like to know who _that_ was.)

Which brings me to the second problem: what kind of idiot accepts a tip like that? The easy answer, some idiot like Corbl and his minions, doesn't actually satisfy me. Reckless and inexperienced, sure, I'd tag all of them with that much. Looking for a big, impressive score, even at some risk? Plausible. But he clearly had enough sense to hold his group together and go looking for help when he was in over his head.

Then he picked up a tip for bothering the Game, and sent his whole team to pursue it a few hours after hitting the right city.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. Malice and stupidity would explain all of this adequately, and when you're talking about the plans of demons, malice and stupidity come up a lot sooner than any other potential quality.

"So there's good news and bad news," I tell the Balseraph. "Which do you want first?"

Elise chews on the corner of a fingernail. "Good news."

"I'm willing to go looking for your team, and see if they can get pulled out. There are a few conditions, though."

"That's the bad news?"

"Oh, no. That's still the good news. Help with conditions is beyond what you should expect in a fiasco like this. Ready for the bad news?"

Elise kicks the door on her side, glaring at the dashboard. "Yes, I'm ready for the big bad news, so _tell_ me."

"Something smells about this. I think it's a setup." I continue before she can be snotty again. "No, that's not the bad news, that's the _background_ for the bad news, which is that we have to be fucking careful about this or terrible things will happen. So if I think this is about to go bad, I am going to pull right the hell out. Ideally, you'll be doing the same. If we don't meet the ideal, well, have you ever heard about sunk costs?"

"Yeah, I'm expendable," Elise says. "I know. You don't have to make a big deal about it."

"Stop filling in what you think I mean," I say, "and listen to me. You work for the same Boss, and I am _trying_ to help you, while getting not a whole lot out of this myself except the novelty value. Which is not itself high."

"I thought you owed that Lilim," Elise says, accusatory now.

"God, did you think Zee would spend an actual favor on this? In trade for yours? Nah. I'm bored, I don't like the Game, it's a good idea to watch a Wordmate's back... Take your pick."

The Balseraph is staring at me, suspicious--that's a default for her Band--but actually thinking now. "That's what Rachel said. Is she a friend of yours?"

"Not the word I'd pick, but, sure, let's go with that."

"She is _so_ condescending," Elise says. "Everyone in that house is. Even the mortal, and she's just human! Like we care what they think."

"We don't care what people think," I say, "right up until we want a favor from them, and then it kinda matters."

The Balseraph doesn't have a good answer to that, which means we get to drive in awkward silence for a while. Fine by me. I've got some thinking to do.

#

I get us a room in the cheapest hotel I can find that still gives us a private room with locking door. Elise does most of the talking for that, while I play dumb American as appropriate. It's not like anyone cares, but it's good to keep up a cover for the sake of practice and sliding beneath the radar. Plenty of suspicious mortals out there without looking like a pair of them ourselves.

Elise slams the door behind us, and presses her elbows against it. "We could be going over there right now."

"Yes, we could totally be trying a raid on a Game facility in the evening when people are wandering idly around the streets in what you _said_ was a mostly residential area. Or we could give it a few hours and do some research." I take the stool at what might charitably be described as a desk, leaving the bed, or stalking around the room, to her. Whichever she prefers.

"We can't case the building from here," Elise says.

"And that did you so much good last time." I pull out my phone, and text my favorite computer expert. "The best time of day to rob a house is the middle of the day or the middle of the night. If they're sitting on Thieves, they're not deserting the house during the middle of the day. So that leaves the middle of the night."

Elise finally settles on the bed, both in the literal sense and as the closest thing to an unoccupied chair left in the room. That bedspread does not look terribly clean, and I _have_ been living with Zabina too long if that's enough to make me not want to sit there.

"You're casing the place by phone."

"I'm asking a friend for help," I say.

"I thought this wasn't important enough to use favors on."

"Isn't. But I'm not using a favor. When you know people for long enough, and don't annoy them too much, they'll sometimes do simple things for you without asking for anything in return."

Elise squints at me. "What's the catch?"

"They expect the same." And it looks like Lanthano is willing to check a few things for me, with caveats about Germany not being his usual area of investigation. "You should try making some friends. You don't have to be particularly sincere, but it helps if you can fake that."

"Are you going to tell me to watch my table manners too?"

"Do I look like the sort of person who pays a lot of attention to which fork goes with the salad course?" I arch an eyebrow at her, not at all like Zabina does.

"...no, you're--" Elise stops because she's running into the problems of Helltongue, where it's easier to lie than tell the truth, and she almost said something honest. "How come you spend time with people like that, anyway?"

"Why shouldn't I?" It would be unkind to point out that I'm spending time with her, and that doesn't say anything good about my standards. "If I only made friends with people exactly like me, wouldn't do me a lot of good when I needed help. And a lot of people are easier to get along with if you go in politely. Not all of them. You learn to pick out what the best approach is."

"I don't want to be polite to them. They're snotty." Elise drums her heels against the bed. "Maybe it's because they're all pretty and rich. If I had money and vessels like that, and people came asking me to risk it for them, I'd tell them to fuck right off."

"Is that what you want?"

"To tell people to fuck off? I guess."

_Lucifer spare me from infants with delusions_ , indeed. Or just the ones who don't know the meaning of long-term planning. I tilt my head back to stare at the ceiling while I figure out how much time I want to invest in this kid. Suppose it can't hurt as a way to pass the time until Lanthano gets back to me. "So here's the thing, Elise. You should always know where you want to be three minutes, three days, and three years from now. If you're feeling optimistic, three decades. Three minutes from now? Still in this room, barring something catching on fire. Three days, we either have your team back or we've given up on them. What do you want to be doing three years from now?"

"I don't see why I should tell you," she says.

"So don't. Just think about it." I turn half away, and check the messages on my phone. Guo's borrowed Yuliang's long enough to send me a movie recommendation, which I may ask for help in tracking down. Chinese historical dramas aren't bad so long as you've accepted up front that all the sympathetic characters will have died horribly by the end.

"I want people," Elise says, in an angry rush like she's trying to convince a hostile supervisor. "And a place for things. So I can keep what I like there and someone else looks out for it, and when I come by they do whatever I say and my things are still there, and no one else fucks with it. The way that Lilim has."

"It's not a bad plan. How are you going to get it?"

"I don't _know_ ," she says, "but I'll get more of it working with someone else than by myself. When I work for Corbl, I can keep some stuff. If I go to some Tether, and work with a stranger, maybe they won't. I could do all the work and take all the risk and get nothing. If I take a risk now, trying to get him back, there's at least some chance it'll work out. Is that enough of a plan for you? Or do you think I'm too young and stupid to run the odds at all?"

"It's not a bad plan," I say. "Better than I had at that age."

"And I want to be _so_ rich and brilliant and good at what I do that even that Lilim will be impressed."

"Okay, that part will take more than three years. Still. It's nice to have long-term goals."

She nods shortly, and drags a heel across the floor. "What about you, Ian? Do you have some big plan for what you want, three years out? Thirty years out? Or do you already have everything you want?" The kid has a gift for making questions sound accusatory.

"I'd like to still be alive."

She waits a moment, then frowns at me. "So you're just not going to tell me."

"No, I'm telling you. Alive. It's a pretty good goal. Three decades is a lot to hope for, if I want to do anything fun meanwhile, but I can probably make it three years. Not that this job is going to help me move closer to the goal. Still. It's always a trade-off, isn't it?"

Elise rolls her eyes. "That's not a goal, that's... _default_. What everyone tries for. If you don't want to tell me, fine." She pulls a knee up to her chest, and props her chin on it. "What are you doing in Germany? When you can't even _speak_ German."

"Hey, I can order a sandwich almost as well as the next man." I drop my phone in my pocket. Not a good idea to lose track of that when hanging out with a tiny Magpie; it's shinier than anything she carries. "Went through a bad break-up, decided it might be a good idea to get some distance."

"A whole ocean of distance?" She watches me narrowly. "That's some break-up."

"You have no idea." And in a few days, I'm flying back over there. Best not to worry about it. Zabina wouldn't send me that direction if she thought it was dangerous.

"I mean, you break up with someone, you come to Germany... Are you sleeping with her?"

"You'd have to get a little more specific there, Elise."

"Rachel. That Lilim. Her servant. Any of them."

And to think, I could be conjugating verbs right now instead of sitting in this hotel room. "I'm going to take the Fifth."

"I don't even know what that means," Elise says, "except that you don't like answering questions, even when you ask a lot of them. You could just lie, you know. Most people do. But you go all 'oh it depends' or 'you could say that' instead of just, just _saying_ something. Like you're being so clever."

"It's a game," I say. "It's not to everyone's taste."

The door to the adjacent room slams, and a baby's wail starts up. Nothing that suggests there's a serious problem over there; just the kind of noise human infants make when they're unhappy and would as soon everyone else join them in that state. Elise winces, shoulders rising towards her ears. "How do you stand them?"

"Again, you're going to have to be more specific."

"The monkeys! They're everywhere. They think they own this place."

"Theft wouldn't exactly work, as a concept," I say, "if they didn't." My phone chirps at me, but it's just a picture from Yuliang. "You get used to working around them."

"That noise," Elise says, as indeed the baby next door is still shrieking. Someone's trying to do something about it, but it's hard to make that sound out through the walls, unlike the infant wail. Different pitch and volume both. "It'll just keep doing that, and no one stops it. It's like that all the time. They _talk_ and they _want_ things and there are so many of them, and they think you're the same!" She pulls her other knee to her chest, and glares at the wall. "We could go stop it."

"Oh, probably," I say. "Bad idea, though."

"Are you an Impudite?" She throws that out like an accusation. God. The company really is rubbing off on me.

"Not even close. But even if we assume no one would ever connect us to a body or three next door, the disturbance would be unreasonable when we're trying to keep a low profile. It's almost never a good plan to kill humans just because they're annoying. Too much risk in a dozen directions."

"But it won't stop," Elise says. "It's not fair. We're so much smarter and stronger and faster than them, and we can do all sorts of things they can't. We should be in charge. And instead we have to hide and pretend, instead of taking what we want."

"I believe you've accurately summarized the War as it's run for the last several thousand years." I lift a hand as she starts to speak again, and get the pause I wanted. "You have a problem with that, maybe you shouldn't be on the corporeal."

"I _can_ be discreet. I'm not killing anyone. It's just not fair that we can't." She heaves a dramatic sigh as the wailing finally cuts off. Not, so far as I can tell, from anyone being murdered. "When are your friends going to get back to you with that information you wanted?"

I make a show of checking my phone. "Not yet. Nervous about the run?"

"No."

"You probably should be."

"Either we're good enough to do it, and it'll be fine, or we aren't, and it won't be," she says. "Do you want to fuck?"

"Not particularly."

She tucks her feet beneath her on the bed, and sits up straighter. It's one of those little moves that changes her from a gangly human into a Balseraph wearing a human-shaped vessels. "I'm not classy enough for you?"

Not enough of an adult, among other things. "Yeah, sure."

"You're doing it again. Why do you even lie if you're not going to pretend you're not lying?"

"Because I have better things to do than cater to your preferences," I say, "and more sense than to give you a straight answer to every question you ask. Interactions between people are made of give and take, kid, like or it not, and if you want to run with ninety-percent take, don't act all indignant when people stop volunteering a lot of give."

"I don't _have_ anything to give you," Elise snaps, teeth white in the terrible hotel room lightning, "except what you won't take. I'm doing what you say, right? All the way through. Just to get back someone else, and even if you think that's stupid, I'm doing what I can about it."

"Trying ought to count for something," I say, "so credit for that." My phone chirps again, and this time it's from Lanthano. "Come here and I'll show you what we have to work with."

She leaves the bed to bend over the phone I've laid out on the desk. "I can't read that."

"Pick up English when you have the time. It's useful." I scroll through the email Lanthano's sent, and hope this phone's as secure as I've gotten the impression it is. "This place is nothing major. No reason to expect more than one Gamester in there, maybe a Soldier. Nothing worth taking that we know of."

"But there were people waiting," Elise says, leaning in until her shoulder's pressed against mine. "You think Corbl got a bad tip?"

A bad tip that he didn't give anyone else details on. Oh, but I'd like to get my hands on that Calabite right now and shake some answers out of him, even aside from Elise wanting him back. "A bad something. We'll give it a few more hours, and then go in."

"What are we going to do for hours of waiting?"

I put my phone in the pocket on the other side of where she's pressing up against me. Would not be surprised if she had the car keys already. "Find out if Germany has any IHOPs, I guess."


	54. In Which We Discuss The Poor Choices Made By Young Demons

Ethereal Form was the first Song I ever learned, and it's been a good tool ever since. Sometimes not a perfectly reliable one, but if so, it's my own fault; I can't always convince the Symphony to do what I'm asking of it. The Song itself is a clever trick every time. All but invisible, and the inevitable disturbance doesn't go off until the Song's worn off. Which gives a clever Calabite (whether he's Fire, Renegade, or Theft) some breathing room to get in, take care of business, and get the hell out again before anyone even knows what's going on.

I have explained this to my annoying Balseraph companion, and to give her credit, she's accepted (with only a minute of obligatory sullenness) that this is why she gets to wait in the car while I go in and take a look around. If she had the Song herself, I'd as soon have her along; getaway drivers aren't all that valuable as a team slot to fill, and she knows the layout somewhat better than I do. She'd also have a better chance of recognizing one or two Gamesters she caught a glimpse of before, as distinct from anyone else who might be wandering through this house shortly after midnight.

But she can't turn invisible, and I don't know all the details of their security system. So. I'm in alone, and she will, if she has the slightest ounce of sense, wait for me to come back. Or for a lot of disturbance to break out. I'm not going to hold it against her if she bolts, if this investigation plummets into fiasco. Bolting when a job goes bad is one of her few solid Magpie traits and it ought to be encouraged.

The car's a block away; not in eyeshot, but easy reach if I need to bolt. I'm on the roof of the house beside the one the Game holds, contemplating the potential entrances. Three stories and an attic, which makes it one story shorter than the building I'm on. They're not likely to look up. (So few people do, as Nik would tell me. What I'd give for a Kyriotate at hand for these jobs. Or a damn tiny animal vessel myself. Maybe I should've thought to ask for that, when my Prince last give me a reward.) So I can take my time before pulling the Song on, in seeing what there is to see.

The place reminds me of Pittsburgh, actually, though I wasn't on the roof then. Not quite row houses, as they're not sharing walls, but damn near to it, jammed up next to each other with bricks nearly close enough to touch. One of the houses in this set has been painted yellow. I suspect back in the US there'd be a historical preservation injunction slapped on that. Here, it's just a house with lousy wiring and very old-fashioned ideas of what constitutes sufficient ceiling height.

Now, the question is, are they expecting me, or are they expecting Elise? The Game's more organized than I'd like, but their resources aren't infinite. They have invested finite personnel and cash and artifacts in making this building, which isn't even a Tether, secure against outside attack. If they expect Elise and a handful of baby Magpie friends, they're going to lean more on personnel. Watch for the influx and jump on it. If they expect her to have found more expert help, that's when they break out the better security systems. Quality over quantity.

What finally makes up my mind is how terrible a plan this is, if they're expecting experts. I think it's a low-risk chance at pulling in a few more kids, in letting Elise go. The Game doesn't like high risk low probability games; they've always preferred blackjack to roulette, in my experience. This isn't a trap for _me_ , or anyone like me. I just happen to be the person who's shown up.

I sing up my shadows, and make my way to the other roof. Lightly, instead of quickly. This is not the time to send them investigating a thump in the attic.

I work my way down the side of the house, four stories over a narrow alley that holds a staircase and doesn't allow the possibility of vehicle traffic. There's a camera pointed at the door: ostentatious and obvious. It takes me a moment to spot the better hidden cameras. (That's a disadvantage of working in the middle of the night.) They're all placed well for covering the whole alley, assuming you're on the ground.

No, they weren't really looking for an expert to stop by.

I settle by a windowsill and take most of a minute to be sure I've disabled the alarm on that window. This requires more tools than resonance; it's a damn cheap system that can be resonated into silence from the outside. I mean, you do run into those sometimes, but not so much around the Game. These people invest in security systems in a way that some other Words don't. Stone would rather be ready to punch you in the face.

Ideally I'll run into neither alarms nor punches. I take about as long to look over the room as it takes me to cross it to the door. It's an office, all work-at-home style with nothing I care about. I'm not here to raid their files. So far as I can tell, the Marquis cares exactly nothing for the Game beyond staying out of their way, or harassing them back if they've started something. They're not an industry to spy on and they don't have much to do with our work. It's almost a nice change of pace; I'm so used to worrying about raiding people who are technically on our side, and--well, okay, we do seem to still be soaking the Vapulans for everything they're work, at every given opportunity. But it's not so nearly broad a sweep of activities the Game can declare treasonous to the cause of Hell.

This particular break-in aside.

Old hardwood floors have their own hazards; I have to watch my step to avoid creaking. But I don't take a lot of time fussing about opening the door. I don't hear anyone in the hall, and I still have an easily accessible window at my back if I need to retreat.

Then it's just a matter of taking the hallway and stairs with proper care, and listening for signs of life.

Signs of life turn out to be walking up the stairs themselves. I back off to a doorway and let them take the stairs up, and down the hall past me. Corbl in the front, looking more irate than anything else, and some stranger behind him.

"She's probably not even coming," he says. "I don't see why I have to stay here. It's been a day and a half--"

"I can count," says the woman behind him. "You're not dissonant, are you? So stop whining."

"I don't see why I even have to _be_ here," he says. "Unless you want me to walk in front of some open windows, in case anyone's watching? Do you think that would _help_?"

"There are more ways to track a person than the visual," the woman says. She is bored with all of this, and not exactly scanning the shadows for lurkers. Frankly, I can sympathize. "If that tracking says you're parked in a cafe sixty kilometers away, or frolicking in Shal-Mari, you'd get some exciting questions to answer. So try to exercise a little more of that long-term thinking that's gotten you this far."

"It hasn't gotten me much," Corbl says. He yanks a door open, looking very much like he'd rather resonate his way through it.

"Rewards are commensurate to the value of what's delivered." The Gamester follows him into the room, and closes the door behind them. "If you've changed your mind..."

I could pick up on the rest of that conversation if I leaned against the door, but I don't think that's a particularly valuable choice just now.

For the sake of being thorough, I clear my way down to the bottom floor. Two more Gamesters waiting--front and back door, respectively--and I introduce entertaining little flaws to their weapons, but otherwise leave them be. If anyone else on the team is in this building, they're silent and behind a closed door.

It would be possible to check every damn door that's not currently observed--and hope none of them lead to a room occupied by someone quiet, hostile, and attentive--but this Song will only last so long, and I don't think there's much chance of picking up on any portable baby Magpies in the process. That Calabite who's chosen to play with Gamesters (and what a _stupid_ move that is, the house always wins when you play by their rules) knows he's the one Elise will be trying to find, not anyone else. The kids are unlikely to be stashed here still in any shape I could get out discreetly.

And it's not like I even liked them.

I make my way back out through the same room and window. There's enough time left to cross the block, descend the side of a house, and then cross another street before the Song wears off. No one's going to catch that hint of disturbance back at the house unless they have ears like an angel.

Elise twitches when I open the door to the car. "I thought you'd be coming from the other direction," she says. "Did you find him?"

There are plenty of ways to deliver this news. Best to rip the bandaid off. "Yes. He sold you all out to the Game, and he's playing bait."

She stares at me. "No, he _didn't_." She's convinced herself, and her intent to convince me hits like an ocean wave.

Well, I learned to swim in rougher currents than that years ago. I push right through it, and snap right back--oh, not at _her_ , that wouldn't be reasonable. I take out the window on her side instead. And when she flinches, I say, "Don't you ever try that on me again, kid, or I'll aim differently." I slouch down in the passenger seat. "Take a minute if you need one, then we'll talk about what we do about this."

Her breathing's noisy for a moment, but she gets that under control. She's not terrible at being a demon. Just...young. Inexperienced. I've been there.

"Why should I believe you?" she asks at last. "Do you have any proof?"

"No, I didn't think to pull out my phone and snap pictures of Corbl chatting with a Gamester in the hall, I was busy not being caught. Think about it, Elise. What reason do I have to fuck with you on this one? It's a lot of trouble to go to for a practical joke, and I'm not Dark Humor." I take a look sideways, and find her staring out the windshield. Probably the best choice. I think she's trying not to cry, and I'm not about to hold that against her, either. "What do you want to do?"

"There's nothing we can do. If it's the truth."

"Sure there is. Some options being more advisable than others. I mean, my usual preference would be to set the whole place on fire, after blocking the doors. That can be fun. But I promised Zee not to make that much disturbance."

This gets a ghost of a smile out of Elise. "We could make a human do it for us."

"Oh, definitely. But by the time we found a useful human, and talked them into it, and got together all the materials... it'd be nearly dawn, and far too many people would have seen us to connect us to the fire. An inadvisable plan. More's the pity; it'd be fun."

"We can just go," Elise says. "Like nothing happened. Like no one cared to come after him. See how he likes _that_."

"That's the easy option," I say.

"You could go back in," she says. "And kill him. I bet you could do it. You could walk in and find him, that easily, so you could just...take out his vessel. Tell the Boss. He'd wake up back home, or maybe not at all."

"Doable, but I don't see a lot of reason to take that much risk. Anything sensitive than he knew, he's already passed over. It'd just be a matter of revenge."

"It'd be worth it for the revenge," Elise says. She's trying to convince herself, and hasn't succeeded yet. I might as well let her continue. Maybe it'll make her feel better. "He shouldn't just--get away with it. We can't let him do that."

"He won't get away with it," I say. "Regardless. He hasn't delivered nearly enough to the Game to make them happy yet, and do you know what the Game will do?"

She shakes her head. "Hurt him for it?"

"No, they're not that clumsy. Not usually. They'll send him out. Make him pretend that he escaped, and run back to Theft to act as a spy for them. Once they've kicked him out, he's not going to have any protection, but if he tries to turn on them...well, who in Theft is going to listen, if they find out he sold out his own team to the Game?"

"That's still getting away with it," she says. "Spying for them."

"You're not thinking this through, Elise."

She takes two careful breaths. There's potential here yet, if she can be told to think something through and _listens_ to me. God, what we could do with kids like these if we bothered to train them properly. And no wonder Zhune keeps getting new partners to break, when the alternative has such a high loss rate anyway.

"We know he's spying," she says. "So we can give him bad information to pass back. Not just not letting on about secrets, but telling him lies to tell the Game. And either they work on the lies, and screw up, or they think he's lying, and then they'll hurt him for betraying them. Which would serve him right."

"Not as much fun as murder," I say, "and a lot more delayed in results, but it has its benefits."

"That's the choice you meant to pick all along," she says. "Isn't it?"

"It is. But if you want to go arrange to set the building on fire, I'm not about to stop you, either. I won't help, though. I said I'd keep clear of that kind of disturbance."

She waves that off with a jerk of her hand. "He'd probably just jump back to his Heart, anyway. Make up some story about how he got away. We can do it your way. We can tell him all sorts of things." Her hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "He'll come find me, and act like he's sorry about who we lost."

"I expect so. If you don't want to deal with that--"

"I can _deal_ ," she says. "Where should I go? If he's going to come looking. Because--if I stay here, I probably will try to set that place on fire. And the Boss told me to keep things quiet."

Valefor never told me that, except in relation to very specific jobs. There was a certain freedom in being able to get damn noisy if it got the job done. I suppose I need to get used to the lack of that particular job perk. "Dresden," I say. "There's a Tether there, and the Seneschal will know who to spread the word to, about what Corbl's up to. Might have a few good ideas on bad information to pass along, too. And it's not a bad place for him to look. Tethers are usually a good place to run when you're in the kind of trouble that's not right on your tail."

"I can get there myself," she says.

"You want to keep the car?"

She laughs shortly. "Yeah, sure. You can have one with all its windows."

Probably I should object to being thrown out of my own mission, this way. But there's not a lot to be gained by driving her to the Tether myself. Just a lot of uncomfortable silence to be endured along the way. I get out of the car, and lean on the open door for a moment. I ought to say something, but this is not the moment for a _Good job, or at least not a terrible job_ or _Sorry about being betrayed by your only real friend in the world._ They don't make greeting cards for either of those.

"Mind your driving," I say. Condescending to the last. "No good reason to draw trouble now."

"Sure," she says. Maybe she's even listening.

#

When I get back home, Zabina's already heard from the Tether about Elise's arrival, and all its attendant news. Possibly I should've passed that information on ahead myself. Didn't seem all that urgent, though. Like we'd be inclined to reveal sensitive information in front of that Calabite? Please.

The sun's rising, and she's seated in the garden. So I take my place there with her and watch the light on the treetops and the movement of the shadows, while we wait for Giovanna to get up and make us breakfast.

"Neatly resolved," she says.

"I would've rather set the place on fire." I slide down in the chair until my head's resting on its back, and watch the sky turn blue.


	55. In Which It's A Good Thing We Can Fly Business Class

I realize it's inappropriate for a demon, but Lanthano deserves to be sainted for putting up with me for nearly fifteen hours of airport, flight, airport, flight, and getting through customs. I am not the easiest person to travel with when I don't have charge of the vehicle. As I've somehow neglected to acquire the license and Role appropriate to flying across oceans, that means the whole damn trip. And unlike some people I've traveled with, Lanthano isn't so self-absorbed as to miss the amount of fun I'm not having along the way.

"This," Lanthano says, as we near the last security checkpoint, "is why we don't believe in checked baggage."

"I've seen what Yuliang kept in her room in Seattle. You're telling me that was all carry-on?" Out is easier than in, once they've assured themselves that we're not terrifying foreign nationals. Lanthano has a US passport for Trey; as I'm flying under Ian's name, so do I, though I don't think anyone would be much inclined to hassle Canadian Rachel either. Through the next door lies the area where unsecured people can mill about waiting for arrivals. I don't see Ash yet, but it's quite the crowd.

"She had Guo carry another bag for her. And of course she'd bought more clothes in Seattle by the time you caught up with us." Lanthano's doing the same crowd-scanning I am, and I wonder if he knows what Ash looks like. "Where's your friend?" So, no.

I spot Ash's jeans as a flash of lemon yellow in the crowd before I catch sight of his face. He's not exactly tall, which makes it hard for him to stand out in a room this packed, but his clothes are doing their best to make up for it. I have no idea how those jeans go with that pink scarf, much less the checked shirt and--okay, none of it should go together, especially that cap on top of it all, but I question what little fashion sense I thought I had, because he's pulling it off.

"In the yellow," I say, and watch Lanthano's expression. "Do you dress like that when I'm not around?"

"I'm not a hipster, Leo. I don't believe in wearing clothing that cuts off circulation in the legs."

I raise a hand, but it's not necessary; Ash beelines our way as soon as he has eyeshot on me. "Welcome back," he says, and takes my hand to pull me out of the throng, leaving Lanthano to follow. "And to your friend, too. Ever been to New York before?"

"A few times," Lanthano says, friendly in a way that tells me he's being a lot more polite than he is sincere. "You brought a car?"

"I _live_ here," Ash says, as if that is the obvious answer to the question. "How was the flight?"

"Horrific," I say, while Lanthano says, "No one died."

"This is why we're taking a taxi right back to my place," Ash says, "where there's beer and plenty of space to sit down without having anyone leaning into your face, before we go anywhere more unusual."

"We don't really need to go anywhere unusual," I say, with visions of Yuliang's clubs dancing through my head.

"Not _wildly_ unusual." Ash is keeping up the pace, and sufficiently adept at navigating through the airport crowds you'd almost think he had the Impudite of Theft attunement himself. But he spares time for a smile back at me. "We've never had a chance to hit the Strand together before. You'll like it."

Lanthano frowns at Ash's back. "You cheat."

"I'm not cheating," Ash says merrily. "I'm just that good."

#

Somehow I end up in the middle of the back seat of a cab, while Ash and Lanthano talk across me. We have all established our respective names, as carried on ID, for use in front of strangers (from left to right: Trey, Ian, Ash, and it sounds like we ought to be in a boy band with a lineup like that); I've had the Strand explained to me as a used book store of great local renown; and the taxi driver keeps giving me amused, sympathetic looks in the mirror while Ash and Lanthano argue.

It's the kind of argument that's phrased as a cheerful exchange of information. They seem to be competing by means of discussing the type of music they're respectively into. Ash knows all the obscure modern bands, but I think Lanthano is winning on account of all of his favorite bands being long since broken up and on another continent. It's hard to get much more obscure than that.

"I'm getting back into retro industrial shoegaze these days," Ash says. "It's the hammers, right? And there are so many places to catch them live, there's no reason not to."

"I'm still waiting for synthpop to get back to its disco roots," Lanthano says. He is being very Trey right now, which--I don't know if I like it, exactly. It makes him more an acquaintance instead of a friend, and also kinda sexier. If that makes any sense. "It's a pity you missed the 70s."

"Anything that's good about them will come back around again," Ash says sunnily. "That's what retro is _for_. You can get the disco ball and skip the bell bottoms. Ian, what sort of music are you into these days?"

"I don't really listen to music," I say. "Haven't since college, and that was just whatever my girlfriend liked."

That gets a full second of shocked, pitying silence from the men on either side of me.

"We can fix that," Ash says. "What sort of music did she listen to that you liked? We can start from there."

"Alternative, I guess?" I do not like that look Lanthano's acquired. It's very much like the one Yuliang gets right before she tries to put me in a skirt. "I like some classical..."

"Mm, well, we can _work_ with that," Ash says. "Maybe start with Sigur Ros, that's like classical."

"No it's not," Lanthano says. "Unless we're talking classic whales."

Ash waves a hand airily. "Close enough. It has the right _feel_ , and we can branch out from there. I have enough of a collection to let us try all sorts of things."

"Let me guess: entirely on LP."

"Not entirely, Trey."

I mouth a _save me_ at the cab driver in the mirror. She smirks back at me, and does not seem in any damn hurry to get us to Ash's place.

#

Walking into Ash's apartment is like returning to another life. He's added a throw to the couch, changed a print on the wall. Acquired a stalk of bamboo in a tiny pot. I could, if I checked the shelves of the solitary bookcase, figure out exactly what books he's bought since I was last here.

The last time I was here it was mid-January, and I could only stay for two hours because any longer would've had Zhune arriving to haul me away. And I didn't particularly want to see Ash puff up like a territorial kitten in my partner's face; endearing in its own way, but completely unhelpful in the long term. Half a year ago. It feels like a different life. It _was_ a different life, and standing in this place doesn't mean I've walked back into it.

"I used to have a record player just like that," Lanthano is telling Ash, because even if I tuned out the music conversation in self defense twenty minutes ago, they haven't stopped. "That's, what, thirty years old? Nice condition."

"Thirty-two," Ash says. "Which makes it vintage."

"You might as well buy the newest tech as it hits the shelves," Lanthano says. "If you hold onto it, it'll turn vintage in good time."

"Early adopters are there for bug testing," says Ash, who I know buys a new laptop every time the OS gets a new name for its update. "Don't you ever get tired of chasing the same shiny new advances everyone else?"

"Hey, if it works, I can always hold onto it," Lanthano says. "Why go without until other people have already figured out what's good? I didn't take you for the type to wait for the crowd to vet everything for you."

I drop my bag by the front door. "Look, do you two want me to go into the other room for however long it takes you to argue this one out? Or should I start judging the competition?"

"You could judge," Ash says, on his way to the terrifyingly large espresso machine. I swear that thing grows another accessory every time I get here. "How am I doing so far?"

"Well, Lanthano's scoring a lot of points based on experience, but you've got the home court advantage, which is helping you out."

"Does the home court advantage get stronger or weaker if I point out that I spent a month in this city back before he saw the corporeal?" Lanthano asks. He drops onto the couch, in the kind of pose that's pretending to be entirely casual. There's that thing with his hair and--well. Impudite. He knows how to do that.

"Mm, I'll give out points for that, but not many, because they depreciate over time." I end up standing in the middle of the room, halfway between Ash's work on the coffee and Lanthano's pose. "Seriously, do I need to separate you two?"

"Oh, it's not that bad yet." Ash turns on a portion of the machine that eradicates any chance of conversation until that noise ends, and gives me a smile that could kill.

In this vessel, I'm not the prettiest one in the room by far. It's a nice change of pace.

"We're just talking music," Lanthano says, all Trey voice about it, when the noise finally dies down. "Should we swap topics?"

"Book club wouldn't be fair," Ash says, bringing me some variation on coffee and milk that probably has its own special name based on the exact percentages of milk and foam and espresso and whatever else goes into these damn things. "Too exclusive." He hands over the cup without so much as brushing a finger against mine. As if we're playing _just friends_ for someone again. "Want us to have it out? We won't break anything important."

"Well, if you're having fun comparing music experience..."

Ash wraps my hands around the cup securely. So much for the careful lack of touching. "We could go on for hours, and it'd be _fine_ , but then you'd get bored. And I did sort of imply that I wouldn't let you get into too much trouble. Fifteen minutes, and we'll be done."

"I'm pretty sure we can work it out," Lanthano says from the couch, with a lazy wave. "What's there to argue about?"

"Nothing, I'm sure." I do not say that like I believe it, because there's no one here in this room who'd be fooled.

I do grab a book from the shelf on the way to Ash's bedroom. _Anna Karenina_. Never got around to reading that one, so I'll just hope he grabbed a good translation. I suspect this is going to take more than fifteen minutes.


	56. An Interlude, In Which My Friends Come To An Agreement

There was no knowing how well sound would carry from the main room of the condo to the bedroom; it was the sort of thing he'd have found out beforehand, if this were a job where he had to be someone else and work a mark, but under the circumstances, Lanthano decided to assume the walls were thin and voices too loud. Leo always _did_ have sharp ears for trouble, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to speak with the possibility of eavesdropping in mind. While speaking as if he believed otherwise, of course. That was the best way to get the right idea across.

This meant running every bit of the upcoming conversation through a few extra filters, but that was almost instinctive once he'd set them up. Lanthano did these conversations the way he did his hair or his expressions: precisely, as second nature, without much conscious thought after the initial decision. Overthinking anything, outfit or seduction, would just ruin it.

"You know," he said to the Lilim, an ankle hooked over his knee just so, "he doesn't even like coffee."

The Lilim settled down onto the other side of the couch, eyes far too bright. No arguing with vessel choice, though it wasn't one Lanthano would've liked to wear. A vessel like that had no options for subtle dominance games or aggression; it was designed for all or nothing, sweet or angry or merry from top to toe. (And with hair like that, no _wonder_ Leo had gotten attached. The Calabite did have his preferences.) "I know," Ash said, still entirely made of amused delight, even if there were some sharp teeth to be found in some of the words. "I know what he _needs_ , and it's not coffee. But every time I make him a cup, he'll pretend to enjoy it. Isn't that adorable?"

"If that's what you're looking for," Lanthano said, and rather hoped Leo could hear. He took a sip of the coffee he'd been given. It was perfect, and that was the unsettling part, beneath all the skill and nature that had him directing this conversation. You expected Lilim to know what you really wanted, but who expected a Lilim to know your exact preferences in coffee? Unless that was among the many peculiar details stored in those files. "I'd expect you could find that closer to home."

"You don't have to get all defensive on his account," Ash said, calm as anything, and drank his coffee in turn. Perfect mirroring in the gestures, but not in posture; the Lilim was still only taking up a fraction of the couch, as if his guest's sprawl was by invitation with space set aside for it deliberately. "I could point out that _I'm_ not the one who decided to move him to another country and continent, or that I knew him before you did, but those are all details. He's not _scoring_ us--do you still go by Lanthano, around here? Anyway," he continued, so composed it had to be a planned and deliberate act, "I have sisters who do keep score like that, and no one wants to spend time with them. So you should really relax and try to have a decent time, as long as you're here."

"From some people," Lanthano said, "I would even buy that."

Ash laughed. "You shouldn't buy _anything_ from me. Have you seen my rates?" He leaned forward, elbows to knees, entirely contained by that corner where he was sitting. A boat floating on an ocean of floor, with no reason to leave so much as a foot dangling outside it. "We might as well have it out here and now, Lanthano. You _want_ to, and I won't charge you for it. Didn't my big sister tell you that? You're getting a free ride, this time through. Sworn up and down."

"There's free," Lanthano said, "and then there's Lilim free, especially when someone pays this much for a little time." Crass to bring it up, and he would never mention it in front of Leo, but that was the thing everyone in the apartment knew, and had been politely pretending wasn't true.

"It's not a little time." Ash rolled his eyes. "We could go on like this for hours, but that's just going to bore us all. Here." He pitched forward closer, nearly on his hands and knees, and offered out one of those hands. "Go ahead. No taking any Essence, or you'd better pay me back, but the rest is fine."

Several conversational trains derailed, and Lanthano picked up what _hadn't_ to direct this a bit more deliberately. "Do you really think that would help?"

"You'd like to," Ash said. "And I don't mind. You'll trust me a little better if you know I trust you, and since I'm resonating you just _all_ the time here, it's only fair if you get a shot in. Come on. I won't even resist. I'm not worried about letting out any secrets; the important ones are under Geas, so there's never been any freebies for friends there."

The coin flip said: why not. Lanthano took that offered hand, and pulled the Lilim right into his lap, while his personal symphony informed the other demon's how this was going to work. It was just a matter of--deciding the relationship existed, and making it so. Like drawing a circle around the right answer.

"There," Ash said, and laid the back of his head on Lanthano's shoulder. "Now I don't even _mind_ that you stole my boyfriend. So what has you all wired about this? You get to see him any time, and I have to pay if I want a few days. Do you think I could come visit, if I asked?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," Lanthano said. "You're sure you can't find another one?"

"Entirely," Ash said, and turned around to drape himself across Lanthano, knees tucked into his lap and arms resting on his shoulders, in--exactly the way that seemed right, which was the dangerous part about the Lilim, right there. Not knowing, with every _just right_ move Ash made, if that was a good guess or knowledge. "I'll prove it to you. Before this wears off. Mm. I've _missed_ this, you know?"

"What, you've spent all that much time with Impudites before? I thought you were more the all Lilim all the time type, aside from the Calabite thing." It wasn't exactly the right thing to say, but Lanthano was no longer sure that the exact right thing was wisest. Maybe it was better to move out of expected conversational paths and see if he could avoid the landmines being planted ahead.

"I grew up in Shal-Mari. I spent longer there than you did, actually. Highest concentration of Impudites that you'll find anywhere across the three planes of reality. Charming comes _up_ , now and again." Ash ducked his head, and peered up at Lanthano through a wash of hair. "It's not always as much fun as it is right now."

That was exactly the sort of pose Lanthano would use on certain people, none of them in this apartment. It was a little unsettling to find it on a Lilim, even when he'd _taught_ it explicitly to a few coworkers. "So long as we're both enjoying ourselves."

"See!" Ash kissed him, a quick peck that seemed nothing less than celebratory. "I told you I'd prove it to you. If I'd said that to Leo, he'd ask how anyone got a demographic survey on demon concentrations in the first place. And I'd say, well, from Fate, by way of the Game, and then he'd say maybe it's a bad idea to trust the information the Game's willing to give up, especially if it confirms what you already suspected. Then we'd probably end up talking propaganda. I like you, Lanthano, I like you all _sorts_ of ways right now, mostly from the Charm, but I'm not giving him up. You don't find that kind of conversation just lying around on the street. Even in this city."

"I suppose not," Lanthano said, because even if he didn't think Leo was listening in, there were points at which it was better to agree. And because, bless it, the Lilim was not half wrong, which meant this was a bigger problem than he'd expected. (What had he expected? The adolescent fixation of some Free who had seen too many Media specials about dashing thieves at a formative moment, and maybe a standard demonic possessiveness.) "So long as you realize he has other commitments."

"He's always had other commitments," Ash said. "They tend to follow him into my apartment. But I prefer what _you_ want to do to me, compared to what that Djinn wanted. Much more amenable to my interests, or at least tolerances. We may need to go shopping for some of the props."

"If you keep using your resonance that much," Lanthano said, bland as he could make it under the circumstances, "you're going to go blind." An expensive little vessel curling up on his lap was not about to distract him from the point at hand, but that was...deep in his head, unless he needed some experiences more than he'd thought.

"I don't short it out often. I'm good at this. It's what I _do_ , that and data analysis and a little customer service--oh, not the kind you're thinking of now, at least not as my job description goes--so I know what I'm talking about." Ash dropped his voice, which might've been manipulation to prompt some leaning in if he weren't already nearly mouth-to-ear in this arrangement. "Some of it's just good guessing, plus having read your file. We do cheat about what our resonance picks up, all the time. I'll bet you a day that the sister of mine who _you_ talk to does exactly the same."

"I'm not taking that bet."

"Smart." Ash laid his chin on Lanthano's shoulder, dropping the arm there to his hip. "There goes the Charm. Let it be for a few, would you? I need to recalibrate."

"Besides," Lanthano said, dry now, "Leo might get the wrong impression if he walks back out here and you're Charmed out of your skull."

"Do you think he'd be able to tell? Or would he just think we're getting along now? He totally expects us to be making out when he looks out here again."

"I don't see how you can get that off resonance."

"Didn't," Ash said. Despite his unCharmed status, he was not leaving the place he'd made on Lanthano's lap. "I know him, and I could work out what he expected from the way he looked at you on his way through the door. Slightly ambivalent feelings about it, too. What he _needs_ right now is for us to get along decently."

"No wonder Zabina made you promise not to hook anyone."

"Seriously! I could probably get about ten people murdered here in the city before I ran out of really convenient hooks. Not that I'm going to." Ash waved that idea off airily. "Hooking is the easy part. Especially if I look for the little things, and the obvious things. If someone wants to become President, it's not worth my _time_ to help. If they want someone to look really interested in their life story until their taxi arrives, I am so their man."

"I suppose it's easy, with humans." Lanthano had lost control of the conversation, and couldn't work out how to get it nailed down again. Everyone had an angle, and so far, the Lilim's was...either remarkably straightforward and banal, or remarkably well hidden.

"Mm, not that different from with demons. Humans and demons need all the same things, on a broad level, once you set aside biological necessities they have and we don't." Ash hooked his fingers over Lanthano's belt. "Sometimes I don't think we translated it right into this language. If I meet a person who needs a good explanation about personal boundaries and some hard limits to get enforced on his life, more often than not what I read in his eyes is _wanting_ into someone's pants. But it's all subjective, isn't it? Do you mind if I take your pants off?"

It was like trying to have a conversation with a younger Yuliang in far worse clothing. "If we're taking off any clothing, how about something yellow?"

"I'll have you know I look _amazing_ in this outfit."

"Yes, many people are amazed by it."

Ash laughed, and unbuckled Lanthano's belt. "Look, if you want to resonate again, now is fine. I'm steady. And I'm resonating you all the _time_ , so it's only fair. The point is--" He slid the belt out, and offered it back to Lanthano. "--if we can get along, more or less, for the duration of this trip, it'll make Leo happier, and that'll be more fun all around."

Lanthano took his own belt back, and did not think about cool leather in his hand. Much. "And that's all you want?"

"It's the best I'm likely to get," Ash said, no more or less serious than he'd been at any point in the conversation. So there was a character aspect to remember: that the sweetness wasn't a cover for real purpose, but part of its flavor. "I'm not trying to steal him from you. It wouldn't work. Isn't it fair to ask you not to steal him any _more_ than you already did? Even Theft has limits, right?"

"If you think I'm going to stop critiquing your musical choices--"

"Not _that_. And the clothes are fair game. All you have to do is not act like I'm trying to get away with something I'm not." The Lilim hadn't moved since handing the belt over, just sat there with that sweet, amiable expression. Darling. Entirely dangerous. "Do you really want to just be _talking_ when he walks back in here?"

"You're a pretentious little Tempter who shouldn't be allowed to pick out his own outfits," Lanthano said, "and that's supposed to be my line."

"My apartment," Ash said, "my lines. Sorry. Not _very_ sorry, but I'm sure you'll get more points in on later conversations. Between other things. We'll have to go to the library and plan a heist. Just _plan_ it, because Leo has that whole thing about books, and because I think Zabina would have me murdered if I got one of his identities arrested, but it'll be fun."

"You sound exactly like someone else I know," Lanthano said, and pushed the Lilim back down on the couch. "Tell me, with your keen insight into that Calabite's mind, how he's going to take it when he walks back out here."

"It'll make him a little uncomfortable, and he'll say something kinda sarcastic, and then about a minute later he'll be over that and totally into it, if we play this right."

"...that's a little spooky, Ash."

"The word you're looking for," said the Lilim, "is _adorable_."


	57. In Which No One Is Robbed, At Least In The Literal Sense

Following Ash through the city--through what's clearly _his_ city, in his opinion--is a peculiar and exhausting experience. To start with, no one is willing to let me spend more than eight hours at a time in the used book store. (Not even when I suggest they can just head back to the apartment to do whatever they want to do on their own, and come back to pick me up at closing time.) Still, it's no great hardship to trek from one sight to another in his wake. I did not know you could fit that many tiny breweries into a city, and there are some damn fine buildings in New York that I never got a chance to appreciate thoroughly before.

Grand Central Station has these _ceilings_. And the floors. Even when I should be appreciating the structure of it, the balance of weight and the aesthetics, I find instead I'm paying attention to the space. What could Hell do, with a place like this? That's the problem with Shal-Mari and Stygia, with their people and crowds and no sense of _space_. Everything that moves upward in Shal-Mari is functional; who's going to invest in a ceiling like that when there's space to sell? At least, in any places the public can access, as opposed to private space that gets to sprawl to prove the power of whoever controls it. They could learn something from the humans, there.

Of course, if we spent a lot of time learning from humans, instead of just strip-mining their ideas for the shiny bits we like, we wouldn't exactly be demons, would we?

There are, of course, a few bars. None of them too full of people; if everyone went there, they wouldn't suit Ash's preferences. I don't mind bars that are quiet enough for conversation, and where I get to have those conversations. Lanthano doesn't take any offense when Ash and I ramble off on conversations about books we've been reading, and in turn I don't take any offense when the two of them get into another round of their perennial argument about music. I have not recognized a single band either of them has referenced, not once, but it seems to make _them_ happy, so how can I complain?

There's also some clothes shopping. I let Lanthano pick out what I should wear, and then let Ash add one reasonable accessory; between the two, I can be assured that I don't look ridiculous, and it makes both of them happy. Which is...strange, and pleasant. That I can keep both of them happy at once, without a lot of effort on my part. They came to some explicit agreement when I gave them a chance to talk alone, and whatever the details are, that's none of my business. I refuse to question what's functional too closely. It might break.

On day three, I get my clothes back on--the latest outfit, anyway--and request directions to an antique shop. Which turns out to be more entertaining than I'd hoped, because Lanthano spends the entire visit doing sotto voce commentary on whatever he was doing during the era various items date back to, plus his opinion on those decades in general. It turns out he was a big fan of the '80s, not so much the '60s, and he calls everything from the early 1800s "excessively European", so, well. There's that.

We end up staring at an end table that seems to have had an accident in the gilding factory.

"I think Zabina would like it," I say.

Ash makes a dubious sort of sound. "From what I saw of her office...are you sure? Seemed more modern minimalist, crossed with some classic stuff. All those hardwoods. Not a lot of...um...lace? What do you call that stuff around the edges?"

"I don't know what you call it," Lanthano says, "but you're probably right. Even so, it'd be a real hassle to ship this to her. How about we go for jewelry instead? If you're looking for presents."

I shove my hands in my pockets, and consider the end table. It's not just fancy; it's outright baroque. "You should see her lounge, Ash. Public face means she has to look like whatever seems classy these days, but I think her private rooms are more like what she actually appreciates. Besides. Who couldn't use another end table?"

"Me," Lanthano says. "I'd appreciate the thought, but not an actual table. Are you really going to ship this that far?"

"Sure. Nothing like intercontinental furniture to show you really care."

"Can't argue with that," says Ash, whom I have heard argue for most of an hour with the definition of "fusion" when deciding on restaurant. 

And that's how I end up paying far too much of Ian Ross's money for a side table so overwrought it's about to have a fainting spell.

#

Ash has decided that we should plan a heist. Not, he assured Lanthano in almost the same breath, one that we're going to execute. Just the planning stage. To show him how it's done. And while Lanthano is not thrilled by this idea, it's not something he can reasonably object to. (I would bet Ash worked that out to the last fraction of an inch before making the suggestion, which is...very Yuliang, come to think of it. I should make sure those two never meet.) He picked the Morgan Library, which works for me; I'm not about to try that just on a whim, but working out how it would be done? Entertaining enough.

What this turns into is me doing all the work while Ash and Lanthano talk music. Or coffee. Or, at this point, social networking, which I find much less interesting than these floor plans I'm working through.

They're having a conversation behind me, on opposite sides of the couch, while I sit on the floor at the coffee table with pencil and ruler. I can't help but be reminded of Seattle. 

"I don't see a lot of reason to bother," Lanthano is saying, over some foam-topped cup of espresso. "Not to go all paranoid, but posting a constant stream of information about my appearance, location, relationships, and habits seems like more of a security breach than a fun time with modern tech."

"It _is_ ," Ash says. He props a bare foot on my shoulder, confident that I'm not going to object. "But so is not having one. Hey, Leo, you don't do that stuff either, do you?"

"Not really. Do you know where we can get good climbing rope?"

"Hypothetically, or actually?"

"Either."

"Well, sure, in both cases. Anyway, case in point," Ash continues, his conversation pointing back to Lanthano again. I can hear it in how he's speaking even without looking back to see who he's actually watching. Something about the tone of voice. "Demons and angels both are less likely to be on social networks than humans in their Roles' demographics, and if they are on those networks, they post less. You can even map when some kid, gremlin or reliever or whatever, who was doing the Role-building first, hands it off to someone with a real job to do. There's an activity cut-off, or at least drop-off, and privacy settings get switched on."

"Seriously?" Lanthano makes a thoughtful little noise over his coffee. "How would you get the data to know that?"

"Some of it just stands to reason," Ash says. "Any celestial on the corporeal's in disputed territory, so we're all a bit more careful than our demographics say we should be. But actually I went to a seminar on social networks back in Shal-Mari. Fate does this whole series, informative stuff for people looking to do corporeal work, or just whoever's interested. It was a two-day talk; day one was all about what they were and how to use them, and day two was all the stats."

"That sounds more like Game work than Fate," I say. "Do you have a compass?"

"Points to north or draws a circle?"

"The latter."

"No, sorry," Ash says. He sounds sincerely apologetic, like he should have thought to pick up these things I never asked for. Maybe he does think it's a failing, to not have caught that Need before I voiced it. "I think they got some of their data from the Game, at least as to Roles they could monitor for the data, but honestly, Fate does some really interesting research. It's less like Technology's testing methods, which are, uh..." He nudges my shoulder with his heel. "Leo, you do the good metaphors."

"I don't exactly know Tech," I say, "but if they built bridges, they'd test the load-bearing capabilities by driving heavier trucks over until the bridge built. And then probably rebuild it in a completely different way since they were bored with the first version by that point."

Ash snaps his fingers. "Like _that_. Whereas Fate would actually run the numbers on the bridge. Then put out a publication about the numbers. And then give a talk where they explain the numbers some more for people who care about bridge-building. They do a lot of talks right near the guildhouse, actually. Sort of a community outreach thing."

"Seducing Lilim with their sweet, sweet numbers?" Lanthano asks, rather dryly. The company does not like Fate, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. The best answer I've picked up so far is that the Marquises have--that the Marquis holds grudges.

"The sort of Lilim that Fate wants _do_ fall for statistics talk." Ash is amused, whether at the topic or Lanthano's reaction I'm not sure. "There's this one friend of mine who says--"

He stops talking because the front door opens.

I don't think a damn one of us is surprised when Zhune walks in.

I am not entirely clear on when I got to my feet. Really, I think I'm doing pretty well. For one, I'm still in the room. (It would be so very easy to exit by the balcony, but _running_ from a Djinn doesn't help. Anywhere but the Marches, he's faster than I am, and he doesn't even have to be fast, just...relentless.) For another, I have not said anything stupid yet.

Ash hisses something to Lanthano. There is an argument going on behind me, very quietly, and I suppose I could guess what it's about.

The Djinn who is not my partner anymore stops in easy arm's reach of me. He's not so much taller than me, when I'm in this vessel. Just. A bit.

I should say something clever, but if I had those sorts of remarks available in circumstances like these, I think that January night would have gone rather differently.

Zhune sets his hand beneath my chin. His smile only reaches the corners of his mouth. "Would you look at that," he says. "Someone's been taking care of you."

I take a step back. To find out if I can, and the answer is--yes, he'll let me move out of contact. (Not out of reach. I know how fast he can move.) In the usual stupid demonic games about hierarchy and dominance, that's a bad play, but I'm not looking to win this one. "You never did learn to knock."

Zhune lets a shoulder lift and drop, a fractional motion that is all Djinn. If I believed for one instant that he was as calm as what he's projecting, that would've told me otherwise. He only goes Djinn in body language when he's got a reason to show it off deliberately, or he's too upset to keep that out of how he moves. Fuck. Not like I would've expected otherwise. He has nothing but mildness and condescending amusement in his face and his voice. "One of these days you'll learn the difference between can't and won't, Leah."

I would like backup. Or a lack of an audience. No such luck, and ten gives you one Ash is sitting on Lanthano in an attempt to get a hook out of this, because like hell do any of us have better options than that. (Over the edge of the balcony is always an option.) My hands are in my pockets; I would also like to look less defensive, but that'd be asking too damn much out of this conversation. At least my voice is steady so far. "Since you _won't_ knock and _can't_ be bothered to call ahead, do you want to get to your point?"

"Your problem," he says gently, "has always been that you take things so personally." I flinch when he closes the space between us. Doesn't help that all he does is ruffle my hair. That does not help at all. "I know you make stupid decisions when you get into a sulk, but you've really done a number on yourself this time. When you get tired of being a housepet, you're going to find it's easier in than out."

The sound that just came from behind me suggests Ash has slapped a hand over Lanthano's mouth. It's probably for the best. I can't--this isn't something I can win by talking, any more than I could win this by breaking out the violence. There _is_ no win condition here. (Zhune doesn't like games he might lose.) Any reaction I make is proof of whatever Zhune's already decided about me, and the longer this goes on, the more I will react. Or someone else will.

Any lack of reaction shows that I'm afraid. No win games.

My hands in my pockets (I wish for a jacket, despite the temperature, or better yet, one of those too-big hoodies that I used to hide in, with that other vessel) and I don't say a damn thing to him. I have learned my lesson. He's too old and too experienced for me to be able to make any moves that get the response I--

It's not exactly that I _want_ certain responses from him now. To want something, you have to believe it's possible, don't you?

"Don't tell me," Zhune says, his voice low and sympathetic, "that you're not even allowed to talk about it." He leans in. He's still taller than me. I'm less afraid than I might be, in this body, but _less_ is not the same as _not_. His hand to my face, and I'd rather it were at my throat. That I'd know how to deal with. "You've always had commentary, Leah."

"And you never listened," I say. I should keep my mouth shut. This doesn't help.

"There's another vocabulary problem. As if listening has to mean agreeing, and doing what you prefer." His hand against my face is still there, and it will be there as long as he likes, because I've never been able to run away from him. "I'd take you away to show you a good time, but I expect you're not allowed. When's the last time you took on a job that mattered?"

I taught a little Magpie that she couldn't trust her best friend, or maybe anyone ever. It mattered to _her_. I'm not about to explain that one to him.

"That long, Leah?"

There is no _space_ to step between us, but Ash is at my elbow, and he says, "Out of my city." (It doesn't translate well into English, that verb. Get out and stay out, all in one. Comes up a lot in Helltongue; it's common enough to be one of the more irregular verbs.) It's not a long statement. There's enough Essence riding behind it that--this must be everything Ash can carry.

Zhune goes so blank-faced he might be any Djinn at all. And he drags his fingers through my hair even as he's backing away.

"Later, Leah," he says, and he goes. Leaves the door open. Like that's some sort of final statement, and not an indication of how fast he'd better move to keep that Geas happy. It has to be a Geas. He'd never walk away otherwise.

He will never ever walk away, until he gets over this. Me. This thing. I wish he'd find another partner. He could go hurt someone else, and it wouldn't be my fault or my responsibility or my problem at all, nothing I even had to think about. It's just what he does. Force of nature.

Lanthano shuts the door like it has personally offended him.

"Fuck," Ash says, conversationally. "Who needs more coffee?"

"How long will that last?" Lanthano asks. I wish--not that he weren't _here_ , it would be far worse to be alone, but I don't want to deal with him being here and the results and...any of this. Wishing to change the past never does any good, anyway. He stands in front of the door, arms crossed, like that would do any good.

"About a week." Ash heads for the espresso machine like we've both said _yes please one for me_. "I could've gone for a month. If we'd left the room. But I didn't think that was really worth it. I'd get a blessed restraining order if he had a Role to attach it to, and if it'd do any good."

"It would only encourage him," I say, and sit down. On the floor. Since it's right there. Might as well.

"I'll pay you back," Lanthano says, and it takes me a stupidly long time, about two full seconds, to realize he's addressing that to Ash. It takes me so long because that's not where Lanthano's looking. He sits down beside me, shoulder to shoulder. Like we're the sort of people who do these things.

"Whenever you get around to it," Ash says, which is very much not a _don't bother_. He's a Lilim, and he understands debt, and I think we are all a bit more comfortable to have that...explicit. And settled. "Do you want one spoonful of sugar, or two?"

"I thought you said sugar in espresso was just wrong," I say, because if I don't I will talk about the man who is not my partner anymore.

"Yes, but you have to tolerate a little wrongness among friends." Ash is focused on his machine. It's loud. That's probably for the best.

Lanthano doesn't say a damn thing to me, and I'm stupidly glad for that.

When Ash brings out coffee, he has one for each of us. And he sits down on the floor, no matter that it's hardwood and not exactly the most comfortable place in the apartment, across from the two of us. He's made me something that's two thirds milk and foam, cinnamon powder across the top, with the bitter layer of coffee at the very end.

I drink that down in two gulps.

We're demons. It shouldn't work like this.

"Ash," I say, like he's not already paying attention to me, and half pretending not to. "You've read his file, haven't you?"

"Parts of it," Ash says.

"Do you know how many partners he's had?"

Ash takes a sip of his coffee. Stalling. "Lots," he says. "I don't remember most of the names, and I was sort of skimming on the older stuff."

"Which ones do you remember?"

He would tell me if he had to charge me. It's not to that point yet. "Yours," Ash says. "Henry, Silje, Ananda, and, uh, Killian? I don't remember most of them. It was a long list."

"Most of them are dead."

"Almost all the ones I noticed."

"But he let go of Henry," I say, as if this is important. God, I don't even know why I'm talking about this. I should change the topic to something lighter and more amiable. Clothing or music or literature. The usual things.

"Yeah, it looks like. There were some babysitting projects after that. Those ones he let go of, but..." Ash shrugs, and actually looks uncomfortable. It's a strange look on him, compared to his thoughtful temporizing that I'm more used to. "I could get you the details."

"No, I'm--" I scrub my hands over my face, and wonder where I put the coffee cup. I didn't drop it. Would've noticed that. "If I cared I'd still be with him." What a lie that is, and even without Penny here to call me on it, I'm sure everyone knows. Never mind that. They're polite enough to pretend they believe me. "Are you going to be okay?"

"If he's too much of an asshole," Ash says, "I'll call in some help. He can walk in here and be _smug_ , but if he tries to take what's mine, I have my own defenses." And he smiles at me, sweet as ever. "Don't worry about it too much. I'm not going anywhere."

"Unlike me."

"If he were attuned to me," Ash says, brisk enough to speak over whatever Lanthano was about to say, "I would swap continents too. But he's not, so I'm not giving up my city for him. Being Free has some risks, and that's nothing new."

"And if he follows you home," Lanthano says, "the boss will rip his arms off."

There is a pause while we all picture this, to one degree or another.

"I expect he won't," Lanthano concludes, and almost manages not to sound disappointed at the thought.

"We should keep working on the robbery," Ash says. "I mean, the theoretical one. Even if it would be more fun to pull it off--"

"No," Lanthano says.

"But I've never even--"

" _No_ , Ash. I am not about to explain to--anyone, really, how I got you arrested for breaking and entering." Lanthano slides his arm around my shoulders. "We're going to do exceedingly legal things in this city."

Ash mouths _boring_ at me. And I crack a smile back at him, and wonder what he gets out of all of this.

"Saw that," Lanthano says. "And coming from someone who listens to Sigur Ros--"

"You listen to K-pop!"

" _Classic_ K-pop."

I refuse to spend a lot of time wondering if they're getting into this argument just to distract me. I'd rather spend my time letting it work, and going back to thinking about--other things. Security systems. This theoretical robbery, which Lanthano will almost certainly not let us pull off.

But we might yet talk him around.


	58. An Interlude, In Which My Friends Discuss Claustrophobia

There wasn't really a _good_ excuse to skip out while giving Lanthano and Leo some time to talk privately. So Ash made up a terrible excuse, about buying ingredients for dinner, and let the hooks dissolve between his teeth on the way out the door. That part was easy, and had that little bite, the sort of spice like the right kind of pepper, that made him want to turn around and walk right back inside.

That would defeat the purpose of giving them private time they Needed. Besides, his head ached, like a kind of symphonic double vision whenever he glanced at anyone's eyes. No one appreciated how hard it was to pull out Needs that specific so very quickly.

Oh, Syntyche would appreciate it. And then she'd ask why he was spending that much time on something that wasn't about to turn him one red cent of profit, except she'd say it much more precisely and cuttingly, in a way that made him wonder that too. That, right there, was a good reason not to talk to Syntyche about any of this. She'd get the gist--there was no hiding that--but not the details or the depth, and besides, it wasn't any of her business. Not any more than whatever else demons might do on the celestial plane, which was of course always her business. He was Free, even if he was contracting, and he could give out the occasional present if he felt like it.

And it wasn't a present. It was a matter of defending the time he'd paid for, and _that_ was reasonable. People bought things they liked for themselves all the time. Computers and Broadway tickets and dinners and kicky scarves, so why not time with someone they liked? Leo's stories were better than dinner out, no two ways about it, so that just made sense. Straightforward. No sister could argue with him if he explained it like that.

He did like summer evenings. All that sunlight--sisters told him he'd get bored with it, the cycling and stickiness and the glare--sinking down and turning itself a slow, oozing orange across whatever spaces it could find between the shadows of the city. It made him want to write poetry, or learn how to paint in oils. The temperature wasn't ideal, but he could stroll along with that sun beating on his shoulders and think about how he wasn't in Hell. Not any part of it.

Somewhere in the produce section of Whole Foods, Ash realized that he had no idea what to make. But it couldn't be _that_ complicated. He'd watched plenty of cooking shows, even outside of Shal-Mari, and people managed to make real food out of peculiar ingredients all the time. So he grabbed more coffee beans, and then a bit of everything that seemed like it might be good. The point was to give the demons back home time, anyway. Dinner was just a nice side-effect of the process.

And staring at the vegetables was rather soothing. Enough to make his headache recede. By the time he got home with two (rather heavy) bags of groceries, he'd picked up a new hook without anything more than normal, unspecified Need-reading. Back to normal. Though another latte wouldn't hurt.

Both of them were still in the main room, which was almost disappointing--they could've just gone ahead for the bedroom, it wasn't as if he would've minded--but with shoes off, and on the couch, so that was something. And Leo was doing that thing where he sprawled out with his eyes closed, as if he could sleep, feet in Lanthano's lap. So that was all good.

"No need to get up," Ash said, when Leo's eyes opened, because otherwise the Calabite would feel obliged to help. Unless maybe help would be a useful distraction? Sometimes trying to think out every consequence of social interaction got downright tiring. More so when trying to manage someone who was _difficult_ , and Leo generally wasn't, which was one of the nice things about him. Complicated, sure. But not...touchy, or prone to anything unfortunate when upset. He was really the best Calabite Ash had ever met, in that regard, and it was no wonder other people tried to hold onto him.

"What are you making?" Lanthano asked, after Ash had unpacked one bag and most of the next.

"I hadn't decided yet."

Lanthano made one of those pained noises that were meant to indicate how much older he was, and slipped out from under Leo's feet to come poke around in the kitchen. "What was the general direction you were aiming at?"

"Oh, you know," Ash said. "Dinner."

Lanthano gave him an entirely unnecessary sort of look, and started checking the cupboards. Which were, okay, mostly full of things for coffee, plus some fun gadgets he'd found, but he had the basics. Sea salt. A really good cooking knife, still in the original packaging. Some home-canned pickles from the farmers market.

"Right," Lanthano said. "Leo?"

"You don't need to interrupt--"

"I'm not doing anything," Leo said, swinging to his feet. "What do you need?"

"Rice wine, sesame oil, and a kiwi." Lanthano sighed. "And, I don't know, flour. You don't have flour, do you?"

"I have rice flour--"

"Flour, and eggs. Just--normal flour. The kind made from wheat."

"On it," Leo said, and he shot a sympathetic kind of smile back towards the kitchen on his way out, which made things that much better.

Ash stepped back and let Lanthano sort the groceries. They were all perfectly good ingredients, and yet two thirds of them got moved to the cupboards or the fridge.

"When you live alone," Lanthano said, "I suppose cooking doesn't come up much." And he was nice enough to not make that sound critical, or too condescending. 

"It's more a Gluttony thing," Ash said, "isn't it?"

Lanthano extracted the excellent knife from its packaging. "No more than making deals is a Freedom thing. Eating together is social. When you have a social group, it's something for everyone to focus on while they're talking."

"I mean," Ash said, though this was not strictly true, "all the cooking classes back in Shal-Mari are taught by Gluttony."

"So you learn from a friend." Lanthano laid out the beef across the counter. "...do you have a cutting board?"

"I don't think so." Ash gave up on hovering behind Lanthano's shoulder, and sat on the counter beside the espresso machine, where he could watch everything properly. "Who taught you how to cook?"

"Various people. Coworkers. My boss." Lanthano shrugged, eyes on his chopping, and Needed someone who was dead, so badly that it almost made Ash's headache start up again. Not from any sort of fuzz, but that knife straight through. "One of my boyfriends. The human ones, I mean. You can learn a lot from humans."

"Sure, they're fun. This woman downstairs gives me all my beer and experimental theater recs."

"A friend of yours?"

"Not exactly," Ash said. "Just--friendly."

"I couldn't live like that." Lanthano worked with his hands like he knew the whole process from start to finish, without needing to think about it much. As if food preparation were as simple as typing. "No Prince, no employer, no coworkers, no one living at home with you, just a lot of loose connections. Needing to pay off the help when you call for it, if anyone even bothers to come."

"You pay for your help too," Ash said, and drew a knee up to his chin. It was a good look, and the Impudite didn't seem like the type to quibble too much about feet on the counter. (Probably Syntyche would, if she were the sort of person to have kitchens or counters in the first place. She didn't even like lattes. Nothing but the information and the handling of it, and that was more extreme than he was up for himself.) "You have to give your service. No negotiations. And you still can't be sure that the people above you will come if you're in danger."

"I'm sure," Lanthano said. "How many times has that Djinn been by, this year?"

"This is the fourth," Ash said. "I'm not all that worried. He can _say_ whatever he wants, but he's really not supposed to make trouble for Freedom." He ducked his head to let Lanthano reach past into a cupboard for the salt. "I couldn't live like you do, either."

"Bound to a Prince?"

"That too, but your Marquis. That company. All your files link up to each other, like a sort of...cat's cradle of social connections. A closed circle, and no one ever gets _out_ , only in. From where I'm sitting, it looks claustrophobic."

"It's not a closed circle," Lanthano said. "We have outside friends."

"And it took how long for me to get in touch with Leo again, after you picked him up?" Ash didn't want an argument, exactly, but some things were best said when the topic of conversation wasn't in the room.

"He's not particularly good with email," Lanthano said, half a smile for it and no argument. "Or phones. But--point taken. We're not trying to steal him from you. Really."

"No, just from Zhune. Which I applaud on principle, because someone needed to, and it's not like I could, and there were worse options." Ash could think of at least three right off, and two of those meant never seeing Leo again, or at least not in a way that ended well for either of them. He dropped off the counter to give the Impudite more room to cook, as the dinner prep slowly spread out. Someone was going to have to clean all that up afterward. "I couldn't work for your company, even _aside_ from how I don't qualify, but I think Leo can. If you don't close him off too much. You know how he gets when he feels trapped, don't you?"

"I did read that file," Lanthano said. He handed the salt back, and Ash put it back in the cupboard. Where it did look a little isolated, having nothing beside it. Maybe it was time to buy more spices. "What do you think would've happened if Zhune showed up here while the two of us were out?"

"Nothing good," Ash said, "but Leo would've apologized for the damages." He left the kitchen to collect all those tiny dirty cups, and said over his shoulder like it was no big deal, "I expect you'll take care of him, anyway. He's good at what he does."

"Valuable company resource," Lanthano said. "So no need to worry there. You should come visit some time. Meet another sister."

"She's a little bit terrifying," Ash said.

"No argument, but she's _our_ terrifying."

And that was the company right there, wasn't it? Ash set the cups into the dishwasher one by one. "Whatever works for you," he said, and went looking for clean cups. "Want a cappuccino, as long as I'm up?"


	59. In Which I Get Home

Giovanna picks me up from the airport. In my car, even, but she hands over the keys as soon as we find a quiet place to pull off and let me swap vessels.

"Anything happen while I was out?" I ask, once we're back on the road.

"One of Zabina's sisters stopped by," Giovanna said. "Some American, all smug and gaudy. Nothing else of any note." She's lying, but not in an important way; it's the way she lies to prove to herself that she still has the upper hand, knows Zabina better, has a stronger grasp of how things go over there. I don't mind it, now that I know to expect it. "How about you?"

"I ran into my old partner," I say, "but besides that, it was a pretty ordinary trip."

"The stalker?" Giovanna asks.

"Yeah," I say, "him," and she doesn't ask any further questions--I don't think she cares--so I don't actually have to talk about it. Which is fine by me.

#

Between the flight and the drive, I don't get back home until midnight. Late enough that Giovanna heads toward sleep, while I go find Zabina in her sitting room. That gets me a folder of papers before it gets me a hello, and some brief quizzing to make sure I did my homework while I was away.

Which I did, because even if New York has twenty-four hours a day of entertainment available, there are only so many hours a day that I want to spend being entertained.

And also because I would rather not disappoint Zabina.

But when that's done, I end up sitting down in that room at a comfortable distance, with wine I neither want nor dislike and my supervisor watching me steadily from where she's settled herself. I can't quite picture her and Ash in the same room together, for all that they're siblings. (By Hell's odd standards for such.) He's bright and considerate and sparkling, and she's...stable. Thoughtful. Here. Always here, whenever I come back, despite the both of us being in Theft. Just because you can't stay in one place for more than three days doesn't mean you can't swing back home, time and again.

"I heard," Zabina says, "that there was trouble." This is a test. But it's not always a test of me.

"Nothing we couldn't handle."

"Is that so?"

I sip my wine. Tannins and the bite of alcohol. I'd rather have beer. But there's such a thing as complying with local cultural standards. "My old partner didn't press too hard, so nothing had to explode. He just showed up to be an asshole. As if I would--I don't know. Suddenly regret leaving him."

Zabina tilts her wine glass toward me. She is better dressed than I am, and older than I am, and sometimes she doesn't have to say anything. Or ask it.

"Yes," I say, "off and on, but that's beside the point. It's like--when there's a Need that I know to reject, if someone offers to fill it. There are plenty of things I want, sometimes, that I'm not about to go after. That's the whole point of being a fucking adult and not a few Forces glued together with enough id to pursue whatever seems most enticing at any given second."

I wait a moment for her to say something, but she doesn't.

"Besides," I say, "if he followed me here, the Marquis would rip his arms off."

"Likely," Zabina says.

She drinks her wine. I open up the folder to see what's inside.

"We're not getting into this without some inside work," I say, after I've flipped through a few pages. "This isn't exactly a 'crawl in through the vents' problem, even aside from not knowing what kind of security Technology put in that we don't have documentation for."

"That's what Shedim are for," Zabina says. "As well as Impudites, depending on who needs to have the information pulled out of them. You don't have to do it all yourself."

"When do you need my report?"

"Give me a preliminary assessment in by tomorrow's breakfast," she says. "With an eye towards a full report, though there's no need to start that until Kohaku sends back her comments on the prelim. Do you have any questions?"

"Not yet," I say, and close the folder. "I'll email when I do."

And that's about all there is to say about the assignment. What I need is a chance to go poke at some of these supporting walls myself, and more details on what we're trying to do with the facility beyond the assumed _get in_ , but that can wait until I've sent in the report that expresses, politely, _You know that crawling in through the air vents only works in the movies, right?_

I take the folder up to my room.

And after an hour of taking notes, I go out climbing.

It's not the sort of life I pictured when I was made. Or when I hit the corporeal, or when I started trying to climb the ranks in Fire. But it works, doesn't it?

The view's still fantastic from high atop a building I'm not allowed to be on, late at night. I like this city better the longer I stay in it. Give it another year, and maybe I'll call it mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first part of the AU is done, here. There will be more; but the opening arc, such as it is, has been wrapped up here.


End file.
